I  f 


•••••••••••••i 


IRLF 


EOUC.  OEPT 


THE  GIRL 
AND  HER  RELIGION 


WHILE    PACKING    HER   TRUNK    SHE    DREAMED    OF 
COLLEGE 


THE  GIRL 
AND  HER  RELIGION 


MARGARET  SLATTERY 


THE  PILGRIM  PRESS 

BOSTON  CHICAGO 


TO    THOSE    WHO    READ    THIS 
BOOK 

It  is  not  a  technical  book,  it  does  not 
attempt  philosophy.  It  does  not  con- 
tain the  solution  of  all  girl  problems. 
It  is  not  a  great  book,  it  is  simple  and 
concrete.  It  is  a  record  of  some  things 
about  which  the  girls  I  have  known  have 
compelled  me  to  think.  I  have  but  one 
request  to  make  of  those  who  read  it  — 
that  they  also  think  —  not  of  the  book, 
not  of  the  author,  but  of  the  girls  —  for 
action  is  born  of  thought. 

THE  AUTHOR. 


CONTENTS 


THE  GIRL 


I 

THE  RIGHTS  OF  A  GIRL 

PAGE 

3 

II 

THE  HANDICAPPED  GIRL     . 

9 

III 

THE  PRIVILEGED  GIRL  . 

19 

IV 

THE  GIRL  WHO  Is  EASILY  LED 

30 

V 

THE  GIRL  WHO  Is  MISUNDER- 

STOOD        

41 

VI 

THE  INDIFFERENT  GIRL      .     . 

« 

VII 

THE  GIRL  WHO  WORSHIPS  THE 

i 

TWIN  IDOLS       .... 

68 

VIII 

THE  GIRL  WHO  DRIFTS 

82 

IX 

THE  GIRL  WITH  HIGH  IDEALS 

96 

X 

THE  AVERAGE  GIRL 

107 

1 

HER  RELIGION 

• 

XI 

THE  GIRL  AND  THE  UNIVERSE 

117 

XII 

IN  THE  HANDS  OF  A  TRIAD 

130 

XIII 

THOU  SHALT  NOT  .... 

141 

XIV 

THOU  SHALT      

152 

XV 

A  MATTER  OF  CULTIVATION     . 

162 

XVI 

A  PLEA  AND  A  PROMISE 

183 

XVII 

A  PERSON   NOT  A  FACT 

195 

XVIII 

THE  GLORY  OF  THE  CLIMAX     . 

2O6 

ILLUSTRATIONS 


While  packing  her  trunk  she  dreamed  of 

college Frontispiece 


Unconscious  of  her  handicaps  she  antici- 
pates keenly  life  in  the  new  world   .      12 

She  was  full  of  ambition  and  willing  to 

work 22 

She  worships  Pleasure  and  Fashion     .      .     68 
Her  heart  is  filled  with  a  deep  desire  to 


M 
ffi 


serve 


154 


The  future  promises  nothing  and  she  has 

lost    hope    ........    198 


PART  I 

The  Girl 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  A  GIRL 


OHE  has  certain  inalienable  rights,  re- 
gardless of  race,  color  or  social  state. 
When  it  has  thought  about  her  at  all,  so- 
ciety in  general  has  supposed,  until  re- 
cently, that  in  a  free  country,  a  glorious 
land  of  opportunity,  the  girl  has  her 
rights  —  the  right  to  work,  the  right  to 
play,  the  right  to  secure  an  education  and 
to  enter  the  professions,  the  right  to 
marry  or  to  refuse,  the  right  in  short  to 
do  as  she  shall  choose.  And  in  a  sense 
and  to  the  casual  observer  this  is  true. 
Our  country  gives  to  her  some  rights 
which  she  can  enjoy  nowhere  else  in  the 
world.  But  as  one  learns  to  know  her, 
little  by  little  the  stupendous  fact  is  im- 
pressed upon  him  that  girlhood  has  been 
and  is  being  denied  its  rights. 

It  is  the  right  of  every  girl  to  be  born 
into  a  community  where  the  sanitary  con- 
ditions are  such  that  she  has  at  least  a 
fair  chance  to  enter  upon  life  without  be- 

3 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


ing  physically  handicapped  at  the  start. 
But  hundreds  of  girls  every  year  open 
their  baby  eyes  in  dark  inner  rooms  where 
the  dim  gas  light  steals  what  oxygen  there 
may  chance  to  be  in  the  heavy  air,  take 
their  first  steps  in  foul  alleys,  find  their 
first  toys  in  garbage  cans  and  gutters. 
They  have  been  denied  their  rights  at 
the  start.  In  a  Christian  land,  they 
grow  weak,  anemic,  yield  to  the  white 
specter  and  in  a  few  years  pass  out  of  the 
unfair  world  to  which  they  came,  or  re- 
main to  fight  out  a  miserable  existence 
against  terrific  odds.  They  make  up  an 
army  of  girls  who  have  been  denied  their 
rights.  And  her  religion?  What  is  it 
that  religion  may  offer  to  her  in  com- 
pensation for  that  which  she  has  been 
denied? 

It  is  the  right  of  every  girl  to  be  born 
under  conditions  which  will  make  pos- 
sible sufficient  food  and  clothing  for  her 
natural  growth  and  development.  But 
scores  of  little  girls  go  shivering  to  school 
every  morning  after  a  breakfast  of  bread 
and  tea,  they  return  numb  with  cold  after 
a  dinner  of  more  bread  and  tea  and  they 
go  home  to  a  supper  of  the  same  with  a 
piece  of  stale  cake  or  a  cookie  to  help 
out.  Nature  calls  aloud  for  nourishment 


THE   RIGHTS    OF   A    GIRL 

and  there  is  no  answer.  The  girl  enters 
her  teens,  finds  a  "  job,"  goes  to  work, 
hungry  the  long  year  through,  fighting  to 
win  out  over  the  cold  in  winter,  and  to 
endure  the  scorching  days  of  summer. 
And  her  religion?  What  is  it  that  reli- 
gion may  offer  to  her  in  compensation 
for  what  she  has  been  denied? 

It  is  the  right  of  every  girl  to  receive, 
through  the  educational  work  of  the  com- 
munity, training  which  shall  fit  her  for 
clean,  honest  and  efficient  living.  Yet 
every  year  sees  hundreds  of  girls  turned 
out  into  the  world  wholly  unequipped  for 
life,  their  special  talents  undiscovered, 
their  energies  undirected,  their  purposes 
unformed,  their  ambitions  unawakened. 

It  is  the  right  of  every  girl  to  be 
shielded  from  the  moral  danger  and 
physical  strain  of  labor  for  her  daily 
bread^  at  least  until  she  shall  reach  the 
age  of  sixteen.  Yet  every  year  sees  a 
long  procession  of  girls  from  eight  to 
sixteen  entering  into  the  economic  strug- 
gle who  cannot  claim  their  rights. 

//  is  the  right  of  every  girl  to  have 
a  good  time,  to  play  under  conditions  that 
are  morally  safe,  and  to  enjoy  amuse- 
ments that  leave  no  stain.  Hundreds  of 
girls  live  in  communities  where  this  is 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


absolutely  impossible.  What  has  reli- 
gion to  offer  to  a  girl  denied  an  education 
which  will  fit  her  for  the  life  she  must 
live,  compelled  to  enter  into  a  fierce 
struggle  for  daily  bread  while  still  a 
child,  surrounded  by  every  sort  of  cheap, 
exotic  amusement  behind  which  tempta- 
tion lurks?  Has  it  anything  to  offer  in 
compensation,  if  it  permits  conditions  to 
go  on  unchanged? 

//  is  the  right  of  every  girl  to  enjoy 
companionship  and  friends.  Thousands 
of  girls  toil  through  the  day  in  shops, 
factories,  offices  and  kitchens  and  at  night 
sit  friendless  and  alone  until  the  loneli- 
ness becomes  unendurable  and  they  seek 
companionship  of  the  unfit  and  the  ref- 
uge of  the  street.  Has  religion  any- 
thing to  do  with  lonely  girlhood? 

It  is  the  right  of  every  girl  to  receive 
such  instruction  regarding  her  own 
physical  life  and  development  as  shall 
serve  to  protect  her  from  the  pitfalls  laid 
for  the  thoughtless  and  ignorant,  and 
shall  fit  her  to  understand,  and  when  the 
time  comes  accept  the  privileges  and 
responsibilities  of  motherhood.  Every 
year  sees  thousands  of  girls  enter  the 
teens  whose  only  knowledge  of  self  and 
motherhood  is  gained  through  the  half 


THE    RIGHTS    OF    A    GIRL  / 

truths  revealed  by  companions,  the  sug- 
gestions of  patent  medicine  and  kindred 
advertisements,  or  the  falsehoods  of 
those  who  seek  to  corrupt.  What  has  a 
girl's  religion  to  do  with  these  simple  un- 
deniable facts? 

It  Is  the  right  of  every  girl  to  receive 
the  protection  of  wise  parental  authority. 
The  guidance  of  parents  who  earnestly, 
wisely  and  with  the  highest  motives  re- 
quire obedience  from  those  too  young  to 
choose  for  themselves  is  the  right  of 
every  girl.  Yet  thousands  of  girls  every 
year  are  left  to  decide  life's  most  impor- 
tant questions,  while  parents,  weak,  indif- 
ferent or  careless  sleep  until  it  is  too  late. 
Has  religion  anything  to  offer  to  girls 
whose  parents  have  laid  down  their  task 
and  neglected  their  duty? 

It  is  the  right  of  every  girl  to  receive 
such  moral  and  religious  instruction  as 
shall  develop  and  strengthen  her  higher 
nature,  fortify  her  against  temptation 
and  lead  her  in  the  spirit  of  the  Author 
of  the  Golden  Rule  into  service  for  her 
fellows.  Yet  thousands  of  girls  are 
without  definite  moral  and  religious  in- 
struction and  unconscious  of  the  fact  that 
it  is  their  right,  and  thousands  more  re- 
ceive moral  and  religious  training  in  hap- 


8 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


hazard  fashion  and  from  sources  inad- 
equate to  the  task. 

When  the  community  awakens  to  the 
necessity  for  sanitary  conditions  in  the 
environment  of  every  girl  and  honestly 
seeks  the  solution  of  the  problems  of 
economic  injustice;  when  the  educational 
system  seeks  to  prepare  its  girls  for  the 
life  they  must  live;  when  laws  for  the 
regulation  of  labor  for  girls  are  made 
in  the  interest  of  the  girl  herself;  when 
the  community  makes  it  possible  for  its 
girls  to  play  in  safety  and  makes  provi- 
sion for  friendless  and  lonely  girlhood; 
when  mothers  instruct  their  daughters  in 
the  most  important  facts  of  life,  par- 
ents exercise  protective  authority  and  the 
church  provides  adequate  assistance  in  the 
task  of  moral  and  religious  instruction, 
then,  and  not  till  then,  will  the  girl  receive 
her  rights. 

And  the  girl's  religion?  The  girl  is 
naturally  religious.  Without  religion 
no  girl  comes  into  her  own.  Whenever 
and  wherever  religion  concerns  itself  with 
the  rights  of  a  girl  it  becomes  a  girl's  re- 
ligion to  which  she  can  pledge  body, 
mind  and  soul.  For  the  coming  of  that 
religion  the  world  of  girlhood  eagerly 
waits. 


II 


THE  HANDICAPPED  GIRL 


HEY  were  both  handicapped,  .as  a 
careful  observer  could  tell  at  a  glance. 
One  stood  behind  the  counter,  the  other 
in  front  of  it  examining  the  toys  she 
was  about  to  purchase  for  a  Christmas 
box  for  some  young  cousins  in  the  coun- 
try. She  had  not  been  able  to  find  just 
what  she  wanted  and  was  impatient  in 
voice  and  manner  as  she  explained  to 
the  girl  on  the  other  side  of  the  counter 
what  she  had  hoped  to  find.  She  was 
extravagantly  gowned  in  a  fashion  not  at 
all  in  good  taste  for  morning  shopping, 
but  she  was  pretty  and  her  fair  com- 
plexion, her  shining  hair,  soft  and  well 
cared  for,  the  beautiful  fur  thrown  back 
over  her  shoulders  fascinated  the  other 
girl  and  filled  her  heart  with  envy.  She 
was  pale  and  anemic,  her  hair  was  dark 
and  there  was  barely  enough  of  it  to  "  do 
up  "  even  when  helped  out  by  the  puffs 
she  had  bought  from  the  counter  on  the 


THE    GIRL  AND    HER  RELIGION 


opposite  side.  The  weather  had  been 
bitterly  cold  and  she  was  suffering  from 
sore  throat  and  headache.  She  had 
turned  up  the  collar  of  her  thin  coat  but 
it  had  failed  to  protect  her  and  she  was 
thinking  of  that  as  she  looked  at  the  fur. 
She  was  worn  out  by  the  strain  of  the 
Christmas  season,  had  slept  late,  and 
then  rushed  to  the  store  with  only  a  cup 
of  coffee  to  help  her  do  the  work  of 
the  morning.  She  did  not  care  much 
whether  the  girl  before  her  found  the 
toys  she  wanted  or  not.  Toys  seemed 
such  a  small  part  of  life  and  Christmas 
aroused  in  her  all  sorts  of  conflicting 
emotions.  It  was  winter  and  life  looked 
very  hard,  as  it  can  look  to  a  girl  of 
fourteen  upon  whom  poverty  had  laid 
a  heavy  hand  and  whose  life  has  been 
robbed  by  the  sins  and  misfortunes  of 
others,  who  has  been  handicapped  from 
the  beginning. 

The  girl  before  the  counter  finally  de- 
cided upon  the  toys,  ordered  them  sent  to 
her  home  and  looking  scornfully  at  the 
cheap  jewelry  and  tawdry  ornaments 
passed  out  of  the  store.  She  was  think- 
ing what  a  nuisance  cousins  were,  how 
ridiculous  it  was  in  her  father  to  insist 
each  year  upon  her  remembering  his  poor 


7/ 


m 


V  v" 

& 


THE   HANDICAPPED   GIRL 


II 


relations  at  Christmas,  just  when  she 
needed  all  her  allowance  for  herself,  and 
planning  to  tell  him  that  next  year  she 
did  not  intend  to  do  it.  She  was  in  a 
most  unhappy  mood  because  she  had 
been  denied  permission  to  attend  a  house- 
party  and  she  could  not  bear  to  be  denied 
anything.  She  was  handicapped  by  the 
heavy  hand  of  money,  newly  acquired 
by  her  father  and  by  the  atmosphere  of 
pride,  vanity  and  social  ambition  which 
surrounded  her. 

All  day  through  the  busy  streets  of  the 
shopping  district  they  passed  —  the  city's 
handicapped  girls.  Some  were  held  back 
from  the  best  that  life  can  give  by  pov- 
erty, which  like  a  great  yawning  chasm 
lies  between  the  girl  and  all  her  natural 
desires  and  ambitions,  some  held  back 
from  the  joy  of  simple,  natural  living  by 
the  forced,  artificial  social  system  of 
which  they  are  a  part,  some  pitiful  speci- 
mens of  physical  and  mental  handicap 
and  some  who  showed  the  strain  of  the 
handicap  of  sin,  mingled  in  that  Christ- 
mas crowd. 

Through  the  open  door  of  great  sea- 
port cities  there  have  poured  during  the 
years  past  steady  streams  of  handi- 
capped girls.  They  are  poor,  they  are 


i 
I 

AV/v 
K 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 

plunged  into  a  life  whose  manners  and 
customs  they  cannot  grasp,  they  are 
handicapped  by  a  language  they  do  not 
understand  and  by  great  expectations 
seldom  destined  to  be  fulfilled. 

According  to  our  government  statistics 
during  nineteen  hundred  twelve,  ninety 
three  thousand,  two  hundred  sixty-one 
(93,261)  girls  from  fifteen  to  twenty- 
one  years  of  age  came  to  us  from  across 
the  sea  and  in  three  years  an  army  of 
two  hundred  forty-six  thousand,  five  hun- 
dred fifty-four  (246,554)  became  a  part 
of  the  girl  problem  our  country  must 
meet.  It  is  hard  to  picture  in  concrete 
fashion  how  great  this  host  of  girlhood 
is.  Sometimes  when  one  looks  into  the 
faces  of  a  thousand  college  girls  at 
Wellesley,  Vassar,  or  Smith  and  realizes 
that  in  a  single  year  more  than  ninety 
three  times  as  many  girls  from  fifteen  to 
twenty-one  came  to  test  the  opportunities 
of  a  new  land,  the  significance  of  the 
figure  becomes  a  little  more  clear  to  him. 
When  he  realizes  that  in  three  years 
enough  young  girls  land  in  this  country 
to  found  a  city  the  size  of  Rochester  or 
St.  Paul,  when  he  tries  to  imagine  this 
army  of  girls  marching  six  abreast 
through  city  streets  for  hours  and  hours 


m 


UNCONSCIOUS    OF    HER    HANDICAPS    SHE    ANTICIPATES 
KEENLY    LIFE    IN    THE    NEW    WORLD 


V  U 


THE    HANDICAPPED    GIRL 

until  the  thousands  upon  thousands,  rep- 
resenting scores  of  tongues  and  nations, 
have  passed,  some  conception  of  the 
great  task  facing  any  organization  at- 
tempting to  direct  that  army  of  unpre- 
pared, unequipped  and  largely  unpro- 
tected girlhood  comes  to  him. 

Where  will  they  be  in  another  year 
—  those  ninety-three  thousand  and  more 
who  came  to  us  in  nineteen  hundred 
twelve?  What  an  array  of  factories  and 
kitchens,  what  rows  of  dingy  tenements, 
the  moving  picture  film  could  reveal  to  us 
if  it  followed  these  handicapped  girls! 
It  does  not  follow  them  —  they  come  in 
over  the  blue  waters  of  the  bay,  look 
with  shining  eyes  at  Liberty  with  her 
promise  of  fulfilment  of  all  the  heart's 
desires,  they  sit  in  the  long  rows  of 
benches  at  Ellis  Island,  pass  through  the 
gate  and  are  gone,  the  majority  to  be 
lost  in  the  mass  that  struggles  for  a  mere 
livelihood  —  just  the  chance  to  keep  on 
living. 

What  if  some  summer  morning,  or  in 
the  dim  twilight  of  a  bitter  winter  day, 
a  miracle  should  be  wrought  and  the 
handicapped  should  be  lifted  so  that  girl- 
hood might  be  free  to  work  out  the 
realization  of  its  dreams!  Many  have 


14          THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 

prayed  for  such  a  miracle,  some  have 
hoped  for  it  —  but  it  will  not  come. 
There  will  be  no  miracle  suddenly 
wrought  for  men  to  gaze  upon  in  wonder 
and  after  a  time  forget.  The  release  of 
the  handicapped  can  come  only  through 
man's  God-inspired  effort  on  behalf  of 
his  brother  man.  In  removing  his 
brother's  handicap  he  will  remove  his 
own  and  both  shall  be  free  to  live.  But 
it  cannot  be  done  in  a  moment.  Effort 
is  slow.  It  cannot  be  done  by  any  or- 
ganization, or  church,  or  creed  or  indi- 
vidual. It  must  be  done  by  the  public 
conscience.  Educating  the  public  con- 
science is  a  long  process  and  America  is 
in  the  midst  of  that  process  now.  There 
are  two  qualifications  without  which  the 
educator  of  the  public  conscience  cannot 
succeed  —  one  is  patience,  the  other  per- 
sistence. All  educators  of  the  public 
sense  of  right,  like  Jane  Addams,  have 
had  these  two  characteristics  in  marked 
degree,  and  all  churches,  creeds  and  or- 
ganizations which  have  had  local  success 
in  removing  local  handicaps  have  shown 
the  ability  to  wait  and  the  power  to  per- 
severe despite  every  opposition. 

How  the  public  conscience  will  act  in 
directing  the  work  of  removing  the  con- 


>7K 


THE    HANDICAPPED    GIRL  15 

ditions  which  so  sadly  handicap  girl- 
hood today  we  cannot  say.  It  may  be 
that  vocational  schools  built  and  main- 
tained by  the  State,  not  by  charity,  will 
be  one  strong  hand  laid  upon  the  ineffi- 
ciency and  ignorance  that  handicap.  It 
may  be  that  the  Welfare  teacher  whose 
salary  and  rank  shall  equal  that  of  the 
teacher  of  Greek,  Ancient  History  or 
arithmetic  will  be  another  hand  laid 
upon  the  shoulder  of  the  girl  limited 
by  the  lack  of  friendship  and  protection. 
It  may  be  that  houses  maintained  as  a 
business  proposition  and  paying  honest 
returns,  built  in  such  a  way  that  girls 
obliged  to  work  away  from  home  may  be 
decently  housed  and  have  a  fair  chance 
for  health,  will  be  another  strong  hand 
reached  out  to  release  her  from  the 
things  that  handicap.  It  may  be  that  a 
minimum  wage,  safety  devices,  laws 
wiping  out  sweat-shop  methods,  will  re- 
duce the  number  of  handicapped  girls. 

Wise  cities  may  establish  special 
schools  for  the  immigrant  girl  where  she 
shall  learn  something  of  the  language 
while  being  taught  the  making  of  beds, 
simple  cooking  and  the  common  kitchen 
tasks,  then  to  be  recommended  with  some 
equipment  to  the  homes  greatly  in  need 


i6 


THE    GIRL  AND    HER   RELIGION 


of  her.  Even  if  she  should  choose  later 
to  go  into  shop  or  store,  the  State  will 
have  gone  a  long  way  toward  removing 
the  great  handicap  by  having  taught  her 
to  understand  the  language  of  the  new 
land,  to  care  for  a  room,  cook  simple 
food  and  keep  clean. 

It  may  be  that  some  thoughtful  States 
will  require  school  attendance  until  a 
girl  is  sixteen,  the  age  under  which  no 
girl  should  enter  the  business  world  as 
a  wage  earner. 

It  may  be  that  the  natural  good  sense 
of  the  true  American  woman  will  finally 
triumph  over  the  extravagant  and  unnat- 
ural living  of  the  present  day  and  that  the 
handicap  of  false  standards,  superficial- 
ity, display  idleness,  and  wild  pursuit  of 
exotic  pleasures  shall  be  lifted  from  the 
girls  now  held  prisoners  by  the  tyranny 
of  money  and  complex  social  life. 

It  may  be  that  in  all  these  ways  and 
scores  of  others,  the  public  conscience, 
working  out  along  lines  in  which  it  finds 
itself  best  fitted  and  most  interested  to 
work,  will  solve  the  problem  of  the  hand- 
icapped girl. 

Before  one  can  possibly  help  another 
in  a  permanent  way  he  must  know  what 
is  the  trouble  with  him,  and  then  what 


D 


THE    HANDICAPPED    GIRL 

has  caused  the  trouble.  The  greatest 
encouragement  in  our  girl  problem  to- 
day lies  in  the  fact  that  politics  is  look- 
ing at  her  and  asking  questions  it  scarcely 
dares  to  answer;  the  corporation  is 
looking  at  her,  compelled  to  do  so 
often  against  its  will;  City  Government, 
School  Board,  Board  of  Health  are  all 
looking  at  her;  women's  clubs,  whose  in- 
dividual members  have  never  given  her 
a  thought,  are  reaching  out  a  hand  to  her; 
the  Church,  whose  part  we  shall  study 
definitely  later  on,  is  looking  more  prac- 
tically and  sensibly  and  with  deeper 
interest  than  ever  before;  the  Young 
Women's  Christian  Associations  are 
looking  wisely  and  intelligently,  get- 
ting facts  which  speak  with  tremendous 
power  and  showing  them  to  the  world. 
More  than  all  this  the  handicapped  girl 
is  looking  at  herself. 

It  has  become  in  these  days  the  pas- 
sionate desire  of  those  who  see  the  prob- 
lem with  both  heart  and  mind,  and  are 
interested  not  in  abstract  girlhood  but 
in  the  individual,  living,  real  girl,  that  the 
public  conscience  be  more  deeply  touched 
and  stirred  until  it  shall  feel  that  by 
whatever  means  the  thing  is  to  be  ac- 
complished, the  bounden  duty  of  Church 


P 

6 


and  State  to  give  themselves  to  the  task 
of  solving  the  problem  is  clear. 

For  in  the  midst  of  every  problem  — 
political,  social,  economic,  religious,  there 
stands  The  Handicapped  Girl.  God 
help  her  —  and  us  —  for  until  we  have 
gained  the  wisdom  to  remove  her  hand- 
icap the  whole  problem  will  remain  un- 
solved. We  are  learning  —  every  year 
shows  a  gain  and  in  this  fact  lies  our 
hope. 


Ill 

THE  PRIVILEGED  GIRL 


O 


NE  finds  her  in  all  sorts  of  unex- 
pected places.  Last  summer  I  saw  her 
in  a  home  of  wealth  and  luxury.  She 
was  fifteen,  the  eldest  of  a  family  of  four 
children.  Behind  her  was  a  long  line  of 
ancestry  of  which  anyone  might  right- 
fully be  proud.  Her  face  was  pure  and 
sweet  and  her  eyes  revealed  the  frankness 
and  honest  purpose  of  past  generations. 
After  breakfast  she  played  for  the  hymns 
at  prayers  and  in  a  clear,  true,  soprano 
led  the  singing.  A  twelve-year-old 
brother  had  selected  the  part  of  the 
Bible  to  be  read  and  the  eight-year-old 
sister  had  chosen  the  hymns.  The 
father's  prayer  was  simple  and  sincere 
and  some  of  its  sentences  were  remem- 
bered for  many  a  day.  After  prayers  the 
girl  attended  to  the  flowers.  This  was 
her  work  for  the  summer.  I  saw  her 
gather  from  their  lovely  garden  dainty 
blossoms  and  sprays  of  green,  making 
19 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

them  with  unusual  skill  into  bouquets  for 
the  Flower  Mission  in  the  city.  Then 
three  small  baskets  were  filled  with  pan- 
sies.  These  went  to  three  old  ladies  in 
the  factory  section  of  the  village.  She 
told  me  they  were  "  the  sweetest  old 
ladies "  and  "  dear  friends "  of  hers. 
She  seemed  to  take  real  delight  in  mak- 
ing the  baskets  beautiful.  I  saw  her 
later  in  the  day  galloping  off  through  the 
woods  on  her  horse,  her  face  glowing 
with  health  and  happiness.  In  the  after- 
noon she  spent  an  hour  on  German  which 
she  said  was  her  "  hopeless  study,"  but  I 
found  her  reading  German  folk  lore  with 
ease.  She  was  familiar  with  the  best 
things  in  literature,  was  intensely  inter- 
ested in  art  and  revealed  unusual  knowl- 
edge without  any  evidence  of  precocious- 
ness.  She  was  just  a  normal,  healthy, 
natural  girl,  well-born,  well-bred,  a  girl 
with  every  advantage.  When  I  said 
good-night  to  her  in  her  lovely  room  and 
thought  of  her  protected,  sheltered  life, 
I  wondered  how  she  might  be  helped  to 
know  into  what  pleasant  places  her  lot 
had  fallen  and  how  she  might  come  to 
understand  and  do  in  later  years  her  full 
duty  toward  the  other  fifteen-year-old 
girl  who  that  day  made  paper  boxes, 


P 

i 


THE    PRIVILEGED   GIRL 


21 


feathers,  flowers  or  shirtwaists,  toiled  in 
the  laundries  or  the  cotton  factory,  or 
walked  with  heavy  heart  from  place  to 
place  searching  for  work.  They  are  de- 
pendent upon  one  another,  these  two. 
They  do  not  know  it  now,  but  if  each 
is  to  be  her  best,  they  must  know. 

How  to  lead  her  daughter  to  value  and 
help  this  other  girl,  that  sweet  mother 
told  me  as  we  talked  in  the  library  that 
night  she  felt  was  her  great  problem. 
"  We  women  are  responsible  for  so 
much,"  she  said,  "  and  our  daughters  will 
be  responsible  for  still  more.  We  must 
help  them  estimate  things  at  their  right 
value."  With  that  thought  and  spirit 
her  mother's  heart  the  girl  I  had 


in 


watched  all  day  with  such  pleasure  seemed 
doubly  privileged. 

Last  September  I  saw  another  priv- 
ileged girl.  She  showed  me  her  trunk 
packed  for  college.  Every  member  of 
the  family  was  interested  in  it,  perhaps 
most  of  all  her  father  who  had  put  into 
the  bank  that  first  dollar  on  the  day  that 


e  added 
college.     Behind 
honest  ancestry, 
worked    hard 


THE   GIRL  AND    HER   RELIGION 


along."  She  was  the  first  on  either  side 
of  the  family  to  "  go  to  college."  No 
one  in  the  family,  even  the  most  distant 
relative,  failed  to  feel  the  importance  of 
the  event.  '  Tom's  Dorothy  goes  to 
college  this  week  —  think  of  it,"  a  great 
aunt,  in  a  little  unpainted,  low-roofed 
farmhouse  far  away  in  the  hills,  told  all 
her  friends  at  church. 

Great  ambition,  hopes  and  dreams 
were  packed  into  that  trunk  and  the 
day  when  she  should  graduate  and  come 
back  to  teach  in  the  high  school  seemed 
near.  Jack  and  Bessie  and  Newton 
were  in  her  plans  for  using  the  money 
she  should  earn  when  those  four  short 
years  were  over. 

Looking  at  her  sweet,  fresh  face  so 
full  of  happiness  one  knew  her  to  be  a 
privileged  girl.  All  through  high  school 
she  had  had  her  purpose  clear,  her  studies 
were  a  pleasure,  her  simple  good  times 
were  enjoyed  to  the  full  and  life,  every 
moment  of  it,  was  worth  the  living. 
When  I  saw  her  lock  the  trunk  and  ex- 
citedly instruct  the  expressman  as  to 
just  how  it  must  be  carried,  I  had  a  sud- 
den vision  of  the  thousands  of  girls,  with 
happy  faces  filled  with  anticipation  of  all 
that  is  wrapped  up  in  that  one  word, 


SHE    WAS    FULL    OF    AMBITION    AND    WILLING 
TO    WORK 


THE    PRIVILEGED    GIRL 


college.  A  great  army  of  privileged 
girls,  they  are.  One  cannot  help  wish- 
ing that  he  might  feel  sure  that  when 
they  leave  those  college  halls  it  might 
be  with  a  deep  appreciation  and  real 
sympathetic  understanding  of  the  other 
girls  who  have  turned  their  eyes  with 
longing  toward  four  years  more  of  study 
a'*d  fun,  but  whose  feet  were  obliged  to 
valk  in  other  pathways.  They  are  so 
dependent  upon  one  another,  these  girls 
who  can  go  to  college  and  the  other  girls 
who  cannot  go.  They  do  not  know  it 
now  but  neither  girl  can  ever  come  to  her 
best  until  the  privileged  girl  sees  and  un- 
derstands. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  the 
privileged  girls  I  met  one  morning  go- 
ing to  work.  It  was  her  third  month  in 
the  office.  "  One  of  the  finest  in  the 
city.  There's  a  chance  to  work  up,  and 
me  for  the  top,"  she  told  me,  her  face 
beaming.  Her  father  had  come  across 
the  sea  from  Sweden  when  a  boy.  Long 
generations  of  honest  folk  were  behind 
him  and  he  made  good  in  the  new  land. 
He  saved  a  good  share  of  the  wages  he 
made  in  the  bicycle  shop,  studied  with 
a  correspondence  school  and  assumed 
more  and  more  responsible  positions  with 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 


higher  wages.  At  last  he  was  able  to 
build  a  house  for  his  young  family,  at 
the  end  of  the  car  line  where  the  children 
had  room  to  play  and  the  cow  and 
chickens  kept  the  boys  busy  and  taught 
them  to  work.  Olga  was  the  eldest  and 
it  was  a  proud  night  for  the  family  when 
she  graduated  from  grammar  school. 
Going  home  on  the  trolley  her  father 
determined  that  she  should  have  the  de- 
sire of  her  heart  and  go  for  two  years 
to  business  college.  There  was  great  re- 
joicing on  the  part  of  the  family  when 
he  made  his  decision  known  and  Olga 
hardly  slept  that  night.  When  the  two 
years  were  over  the  principal  of  the 
school  had  said  such  fine  things  of  her 
work  that  Olga  had  blushed  to  hear 
them.  More  than  that,  he  offered  her 
the  best  position  open  to  his  students. 
He  was  a  little  astonished  the  next  morn- 
ing when  Olga's  father  came  down  to 
ask  in  his  careful  English  regarding  the 
character  of  the  men  in  the  office  where 
his  daughter  was  to  work.  To  Olga's 
great  joy  he  was  able  to  satisfy  the 
father  to  whom  the  matter  was  of  enough 
importance  to  make  him  put  on  his  best 
clothes  and  take  half  a  day  off,  in  order 
to  make  sure  that  all  was  right. 


THE    PRIVILEGED   GIRL 


money 

shall  keep  the  account  of  it  and  show 
it  to  your  father.  You  shall  buy  the 
new  bed  for  your  room  and  the  chairs. 
Your  mother  wants  the  house  made 
pretty.  Perhaps  you  will  help.  That 
will  be  very  good.  But  the  money  is 
yours."  No  one  seeing  the  girl's  face 
as  she  related  her  father's  words  could 
doubt  the  appreciation  in  her  heart. 
Her  girl  friends  had  "  paid  their 
board  "  and  she  had  expected  to  do  the 
same.  That  night  she  refurnished  the 
house  in  her  dreams  and  the  memory  of 
that  dream  room  of  her  mother's,  with 
paper  on  the  wall  and  rugs  on  the  floor, 
helped  her  save  her  money  until  the 
dream  came  true. 

Olga  is  indeed  a  privileged  girl.  She 
has  parents  wise  enough  to  have  given 
her  the  best  equipment  possible  for  the 
work  she  wanted  to  do.  She  has  her 
own  money  and  may  dress  as  well  as 


26 


THE   GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


The  suburban  church  is  the  center  of 
many  of  her  pleasures,  for  it  is  alive  and 
the  young  people  in  it  know  how  to  en- 
joy themselves.  She  is  loved  and  shel- 
tered in  a  real  home.  She  can  live  a 
normal,  useful,  happy  life  with  oppor- 
tunity for  promotion  in  her  work  and  an 
object  for  her  ambition.  She  has  health, 
sane  pleasures  and  good  friends.  Any 
such  girl  is  indeed  privileged. 

When  one  sees  her  going  happily  to 
work  he  is  forced  to  think  of  the  other 
girl,  her  homeless  boarding  place,  chance 
friends,  pitiful  economies  and  few  pleas- 
ures; the  girl  who  has  forgotten  what  it 
means  to  be  sheltered  and  protected,  if 
she  ever  knew,  to  whom  love  is  a  myth 
or  a  dream. 

Perhaps  one  of  the  happiest  of  the  priv- 
ileged girls  was  the  one  who  took  me  to 
her  room  on  a  beautiful  June  day  to 
show  me  her  cedar  chest,  her  gowns  and 
the  gifts  already  beginning  to  come. 
The  day  was  near.  The  young  man 
whom  she  was  to  marry  was  honest  and 
fine,  in  business  with  his  father  and 
hoping  to  make  the  firm  a  greater  suc- 
cess than  ever,  as  the  years  should  pass. 
The  girl  was  just  twenty-one.  After 


THE   PRIVILEGED   GIRL  JjT 

high  school,  a  mother  who  was  not 
strong  needed  her  help  and  she  had 
made  that  home  a  center  of  enjoyment 
for  three  years.  Surrounded  by  the  lov- 
ing appreciation  of  parents  and  brothers, 
her  life  was  filled  with  happiness.  Now 
in  a  few  days  she  would  go  across  the 
street  to  the  house  built  for  her  and 
furnished  simply  and  well,  with  the  ar- 
ticles which  he  and  she  had  chosen  on 
the  long  shopping  tours  during  the  months 
past.  She  was  in  every  sense  a  priv- 
ileged girl. 

The  other  girl  saw  her  married.  She 
was  looking  forward  to  her  own  wed- 
ding day  but  it  seemed  farther  away  than 
ever.  She  had  no  hope  for  a  house  built 
for  her,  but  she  knew  where  there  was 
a  flat  for  rental  which  she  had  mentally 
furnished  many  times  that  month.  But 
they  could  not  afford  it.  They  had 
added  and  subtracted  and  gone  over  the 
figures  again  and  again  but  it  was  of  no 
use.  He  was  manly  and  fine,  he  had 
hope  and  ambition,  but  the  clerkship  was 
only  fifteen  dollars  a  week  and  he 
had  tried  in  vain  for  another  position. 
Fifteen  dollars  a  week  would  not  do  in 
their  city.  Butter,  eggs,  coal,  ice,  milk 


B 

H 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


and  meat  stood  in  the  way.  So  they  were 
waiting  and  there  were  tears  in  her  eyes 
at  the  wedding  of  the  privileged  girl. 

That  day  was  a  hard  one  for  another 
girl.  She  read  of  the  wedding  —  the 
decorations,  the  gifts,  the  congratulations 
of  friends  —  then  putting  down  the  paper 
forced  back  the  tears  and  went  out  to 
finish  the  shirt  waist  she  was  making,  for 
it  must  be  ready  to  wear  to  the  office  in 
the  morning.  That  evening  he  would 
come,  she  knew,  to  tell  her  again  that  it 
was  not  fair,  that  her  family  would  get 
along  some  way  and  that  he  had  been 
patient  for  a  long  time.  She  knew  that 
he  must  continue  to  wait,  for  her  mother 
was  doing  her  utmost,  Wilbur  could  earn 
only  a  little  and  the  other  two  children 
were  too  young  to  leave  school.  It  was 
three  years  since  her  father's  death. 
The  young  man  had  said  then  that  he 
could  wait  ten  years.  She  had  begged 
him  to  take  his  release  but  he  refused. 
Of  late  he  had  been  very  insistent.  She 
knew  she  must  stand  by  her  mother  and 
help  her  through.  If  he  could  not  see 
it  that  way  there  was  but  one  thing  to 
do.  She  found  it  hard  even  to  think 
the  words  that  she  must  say  and  she 
thought  of  the  privileged  girl  with  long- 


\ 


ing  in  her  soul.  But  the  privileged  girl 
did  not  know.  If  she  had,  her  sympathy 
and  understanding  would  have  helped. 

One  rejoices  as  he  remembers  the 
thousands  of  pure,  sweet,  wholesome 
girls  who  have  been  privileged  to  enjoy 
the  results  of  a  long  ancestry  unstained 
by  weakness  and  sin,  the  results  of  train- 
ing, guidance  and  protection,  the  oppor- 
tunity for  healthful,  normal  living,  for 
pleasures  and  the  satisfaction  of  human 
friendship  and  love.  Our  country  looks 
today  with  increasing  hopefulness  to  these 
privileged  girls  for  the  solution  of  many 
of  the  problems  of  the  other  girl.  Our 
country  looks  to  them  for  another  gen- 
eration of  privileged  girls  even  stronger 
and  wiser  than  they. 

One  of  the  greatest  of  the  problems 
with  which  our  country  is  concerned  to- 
day, the  solution  of  which  involves  every 
phase  of  social,  religious  and  economic 
life,  is  the  providing  of  ways  and  means 
by  which  the  unprivileged  girl  may,  in 
large  numbers,  be  promoted  into  the 
privileged  class. 


K 


IV 


THE  GIRL  WHO  IS  EASILY  LED 

O  HE  is  a  chameleon  sort  of  girl  but  she 
is  not  rare.  So  often  she  is  sVeet  and 
lovable.  Almost  without  exception  she 
is  obliging,  a  jolly  companion,  fearless 
and  frank.  One  often  finds  her  a  girl 
of  talent  and  natural  ability.  She  is  the 
very  opposite  of  the  indifferent  girl  for 
she  responds  to  everything.  The  girl 
she  will  finally  become  depends  upon 
the  companions  whose  lead  she  follows. 
Her  safety  lies  in  the  establishment  of 
the  habit  of  going  in  the  right  way.  She 
is  the  girl  who  most  needs  care  and 
guardianship.  So  much  depends  upon 
her  choice  of  friends  that  parents  and 
teachers  must  be  wise  for  her. 

A  little  ten-year-old,  in  whom  all  her 
teachers  were  interested  because  of  her 
versatility  and  quick  response  to  every 
interest,  moved  into  a  new  neighborhood. 
Some  weeks  later  because  of  her  ability 
to  learn  rapidly  she  was  put  into  a  higher 
30 


THE   GIRL   WHO   IS   EASILY   LED         3! 

grade.  Her  new  home  and  new  class- 
mates in  a  short  time  entirely  changed 
the  character  of  her  environment.  Be- 
fore long  the  girl  herself  began  to  show 
the  result  of  the  change.  She  had  al- 
ways been  too  much  interested  in  her 
studies  to  waste  time  or  disobey  the 
school  rules.  Following  the  leadership 
of  some  of  the  newly  made  friends  she 
entered  into  all  the  little  conspiracies  of 
a  group  of  girls  and  boys  who  made 
things  hard  for  the  teacher,  a  rather  weak 
disciplinarian.  One  day,  the  girl  hither- 
to perfectly  honest,  told  a  lie  to  get  out 
of  the  trouble  into  which  the  following 
of  the  new  leaders  had  brought  her. 
It  troubled  her  conscience  and  she  cried 
on  the  way  home  from  school,  but  her 
companions  laughed  at  her,  told  her  she 
was  "  all  right,"  and  had  stood  by 
them  splendidly.  They  made  her  feel 
heroic  and  she  dried  her  eyes  and  stifled 
her  desire  to  tell  her  mother.  Before 
the  year  was  over  the  child  had  entirely 
changed.  Her  studies  suffered,  she 
seemed  to  lose  her  ambition,  her  natu- 
ralness and  spontaneity  vanished.  Her 
mother  began  to  discover  increasing  un- 
truthfulness.  One  day,  toward  the  close 


32          THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 

of  the  school  year,  the  child  asked  to  wear 
her  best  dress  to  school,  saying  there 
was  to  be  an  entertainment.  There  was 
no  entertainment.  Instead  there  was  a 
party  at  the  home  of  one  of  the  girls 
of  whom  her  mother  disapproved.  The 
party  began  later  than  they  had  planned 
and  it  was  nearly  six  before  the  child 
reached  home.  She  found  her  mother 
greatly  troubled  and  said  quite  glibly  that 
she  had  stayed  after  school  to  help  the 
teacher.  Next  day  the  mother  called 
at  the  school  to  remonstrate  with  the 
teacher  for  keeping  the  child  so  often 
and  so  late  to  "  help  "  her.  Then  the 
whole  truth  came  out  and  the  mother 
was  dismayed.  She  felt  that  the  mat- 
ter was  so  serious  that  she  must  remove 
her  daughter  at  once  from  her  com- 
panions and  before  school  opened  in  the 
fall  the  family  had  moved  back  to  their 
former  neighborhood  and  the  parents 
were  permitted  to  send  the  little  girl  to 
another  school  where  new  associates  were 
carefully  chosen.  Before  she  left  that 
grammar  school  she  had  recovered  her 
frank,  sweet  spirit,  her  interest  in  her 
studies  returned,  and  surrounded  by  a 
group  of  fine  boys  and  girls  she  went 


THE   GIRL   WHO    IS   EASILY    LED 


33 


I 


through  the  high  school  with  the  love  and 
respect  of  teachers  and  companions. 

This  child  is  the  type  of  many,  who 
as  early  as  ten  years  and  younger,  are  so 
easily  led  that  their  natural  tendencies 
toward  good  are  wholly  transformed  by 
association  with  evil  companions  whose 
strong  personality  and  power  of  leader- 
ship can  so  easily  turn  the  weak  wills  into 
the  wrong  pathway. 

Parents  and  teachers  cannot  be  too 
careful  of  the  companions  of  a  girl  of 
vacillating,  easy-going,  versatile  temper- 
ament, for  they  may  ruin  or  make  her. 

When  Leonora  moved  from  the  great 
manufacturing  city,  which  had  been  her 
home  for  fourteen  years,  to  the  home  of 
her  aunt,  in  a  quiet  suburb,  where  the 
children  attending  the  high  school  were 
from  homes  of  real  culture  and  re- 
finement, she  was  disconsolate.  Voices, 
language,  games,  manner  of  recitation, 
behavior  on  the  school  grounds  and 
street,  perplexed  her.  She  seemed  lost 
in  her  new  environment.  She  had  never 
been  a  leader  but  had  followed  with  all 
her  heart.  Her  playground  had  been 
the  street.  She  had  enjoyed  boisterous 
good  times,  had  patronized  moving  pic- 


34 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 


tures  of  every  sort,  had  entered  into  the 
mischief  of  "  the  crowd "  always  close 
to  the  leader.  In  a  pathetic  letter  to 
one  of  her  chums  she  said  that  at  the  very 
first  opportunity  she  should  run  away  and 
be  with  them  all  again.  She  character- 
ized the  beautiful  suburb  with  its  neatly 
kept  lawns  and  pretty  homes  as  "  a  dead 
old  hole  "  from  which  she  could  not  wait 
to  escape.  Still,  her  aunt's  home,  the 
new  wardrobe  containing  the  lovely 
dresses,  becoming  hats  and  coats,  for 
which  she  had  always  longed,  tempted 
her  to  remain.  One  day,  early  in  Oc- 
tober, her  classmates  made  the  discovery 
that  she  could  sing.  She  had  quite  a 
remarkable  voice  for  a  girl  of  her  age. 
The  teacher  of  music  became  her  inter- 
ested friend  and  found  she  could  play 
unusually  well,  though  mostly  "  by  ear." 
The  leader  among  the  girls  who 
"  adored "  any  one  who  could  sing 
adopted  Leonora  as  her  special  friend. 
The  new  wardrobe  added  greatly  to  her 
attractiveness,  and  her  aunt's  social  posi- 
tion opened  many  doors  for  her.  Her 
new  friend's  mother  was  pleased  with 
her  daughter's  choice  of  a  companion  de- 
spite the  lack  of  good  breeding  and  lapses 
in  English. 


THE   GIRL   WHO   IS   EASILY   LED         35 

Leonora  became  the  obedient  and  de- 
voted follower  of  the  new  girl  friend  and 
the  influence  of  the  music  teacher  was  in- 
deed remarkable.  Almost  as  by  magic 
Leonora  dropped  the  coarse  slang,  loud 
talking  and  shouting  of  her  companions, 
who  in  the  city  had  been  termed  "  wild  " 
and  adopted  the  ways  of  the  new  leader. 
At  the  end  of  two  years  it  would  have 
been  quite  impossible  to  recognize  in  the 
pretty,  interesting,  well-mannered  girl  of 
sixteen,  who  sang  so  sweetly,  the  uncul- 
tured, ill-mannered,  slangy  girl  of  four- 
teen. 

Leonora  was  so  easily  led  that  it  was 
not  a  difficult  task  or  a  great  accom- 
plishment to  have  so  transformed  her. 
If  she  remains  until  she  is  eighteen  or 
twenty  in  her  present  environment,  the 
chances  are  that  the  good  friend,  Habit, 
will  have  determined  the  way  that  she 
shall  go.  If  she  should  now  drop  back 
into  the  old  street,  the  old  companionship, 
the  place  which  until  her  father's  death 
he  had  tried  with  her  help  to  make  a 
home,  the  chances  are  the  old  voice  and 
manner,  the  old  slang  and  old  interests 
would  return. 

For  a  girl  of  Leonora's  type  the  im- 
press of  the  right  environment,  the  guid- 


.36         THE   GIRL  AND    HER  RELIGION 

ance  of  the  right  hand,  means  everything. 
To  discover  such  girls,  to  open  the  way 
for  the  working  of  new  friendships, 
which  shall  furnish  new  leadership  for 
them,  is  a  fine  task  and  a  great  pleasure 
for  the  lovers  of  girlhood. 

But  so  impossible  is  the  task  of 
attempting,  through  the  individual,  to 
touch  the  great  mass  of  girls  who  are 
easily  led,  that  one  can  work  effectually 
only  through  the  individual  effort  plus 
the  law.  It  must  be  made  "  to  go  hard  " 
with  those  who,  for  selfish  ends  and  finan- 
cial profit,  plan  to  take  advantage  of  the 
weak  will  and  trusting,  unsuspecting  mind 
of  the  girl  who  is  easily  led. 

Most  of  the  girls  in  their  teens,  who 
are  walking  in  evil  ways,  are  there 
because  they  have  followed  friends  and 
companions.  There  are  girls  who  have 
blazed  the  way  to  paths  of  evil  for  them- 
selves, but  they  are  comparatively  few. 
Any  court,  or  school  for  delinquent  girls, 
which  contains  a  sympathetic  man  or 
woman  to  whom  the  whole  truth  may  be 
poured  out,  will  testify  that  somebody 
led  the  way.  When  allowance  is  made 
for  the  tendency  to  lay  the  blame  upon 
other  shoulders,  the  facts  bear  out  the 
testimony  that  there  has  been  a  leader. 


THE   GIRL   WHO   IS   EASILY   LED        ^37 

The  girls  who  by  nature  are  weak  of  will, 
and  have  had  no  training  which  could 
tend  to  strengthen  or  develop  that  will, 
must  be  protected,  and  that  protection 
must  be  furnished  by  the  community.  It 
may  be  furnished  by  putting  the  welfare 
teacher  into  the  school;  by  making  the 
street  on  which  so  many  girls  find  com- 
panionship as  safe  as  possible;  by  driv- 
ing professional  leaders  of  the  unsus- 
pecting and  easily  led  from  all  places  of 
recreation  and  amusement;  by  helping 
parents,  especially  those  parents,  who, 
themselves  born  across  the  sea  are  at- 
tempting to  bring  up  daughters  in  the  new 
land,  to  see  and  understand  the  dangers; 
and  by  making  it  a  real  crime  to  lead  the 
easily  led  astray. 

But  this  is  not  enough.  Perhaps  the 
greatest  steps  toward  the  safe-guarding 
of  the  easily  led  were  taken  when  the 
carefully  supervised  public  playground 
and  the  school  gardens  were  started  and 
the  women  police  were  sent  out  into  the 
streets  of  cities. 

A  strong,  wise,  sane  woman  who  is 
neither  a  prude  nor  a  crank  can  do  more 
toward  preventing  the  first  steps  into  for- 
bidden ways  than  those  interested  in 
great  city  problems  have  yet  dreamed. 


THE   GIRL  AND    HER   RELIGION 


38 

The  day  will  come  when  these  women 
will  make  the  arm  of  the  law  an  efficient 
friend  of  the  weak  and  unprotected  girl 
and  give  all  the  positive,  helpful  agencies 
an  opportunity  to  strengthen  her  against 
temptation. 

I  shall  never  forget  my  visit  that  Sun- 
day afternoon  to  a  detention  school  for 
delinquent  girls.  Over  in  the  corner  of 
the  room  where  the  afternoon  service 
was  to  be  held  was  the  piano,  the 
orchestra,  made  up  of  members  of  the 
school,  was  gathering.  There  was  a 
cornetist,  two  or  three  violins  followed, 
then  a  banjo  and  guitar.  The  service 
that  day  was  to  be  a  great  event,  for  the 
wonderful  woman  in  charge  of  that 
school  who  had  done  away  with  the  cells, 
taken  down  the  great  spiked  iron  fence 
and  planted  flowers  in  its  stead  had  per- 
suaded board,  committee  and  municipal- 
ity to  permit  her  to  follow  out  the  one 
great  desire  of  her  heart.  The  girls 
were  to  wear  on  Sundays  and  other  dress 
occasions  white  Peter  Thompson  suits, 
big  bows  of  ribbon  in  their  hair  and  shin- 
ing, well-fitted  shoes. 

Soon  she  entered  the  room.  One 
could  hardly  take  her  eyes  from  that 
sweet,  sympathetic,  calm,  face.  A  glance 


THE   GIRL   WHO   IS   EASILY   LED 


39 


told  one  she  might  trust  her  with  her 
soul's  secrets  without  fear  and  might  tell 
her  anything  and  she  would  understand. 
After  her  came  the  girls  and  quietly,  with 
an  attractive  self-consciousness  because 
of  their  new  glory  raiment,  they  took 
their  seats.  Who  could  fail  to  forgive 
them  if  they  fingered  lovingly  the  great 
soft  silk  Peter  Thompson  ties  and  patted 
the  bows  on  their  hair.  Some  of  them 
seemed  scarcely  more  than  children 
though  some  were  in  their  later  teens. 
No  one  of  the  group  present  that  after- 
noon will  ever  forget  how  they  sang,  nor 
how  they  listened  with  eager  responsive 
faces.  No  one  can  tell  what  new  hopes 
and  ambitions  were  born  as  they  sat  in 
their  new  finery,  some  of  them  for  the 
first  time  in  their  lives  becomingly 
dressed. 

After  the  service  they  filed  out,  put 
on  their  long  checked  aprons  and  got 
supper.  We  saw  the  beds  in  the  wards 
where  all  the  new  comers  must  sleep, 
then  the  smaller  rooms  with  six  and  four 
beds,  the  still  smaller  with  two  and  the 
honor  rooms  which  a  girl  might  occupy 
alone  and  might  arrange  as  she  chose. 
There  were  flowers  in  all  the  single  rooms 
and  pictures  on  the  walls. 


4O          THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

It  almost  seemed  as  we  walked  along 
the  edge  of  the  drive  over  the  walk  the 
girls  had  laid,  that  we  were  leaving  a 
boarding  school  where  girls  were  being 
taught  household  economics  and  the  arts 
and  crafts. 

The  woman  who  had  wrought  the 
miracle  which  had  been  wrought  in  that 
school  stood  at  the  end  of  the  drive  as 
we  left  and  in  response  to  the  exclama-  ^aV 
tion,  "  It  seems  impossible  that  these 
girls  could  ever  have  been  guilty  of  the 
deeds  the  records  show!  "  she  answered, 
"  These  girls  are  not  vicious.  It  is  after 
all  a  question  of  leadership  and  they  fol- 
lowed the  wrong  leaders."  She  paused 
a  moment,  looked  back  at  the  buildings, 
and  then  said  softly,  "  God  pity  the  girl 
who  is  easily  led."  And  in  our  hearts 
we  echoed  her  prayer. 


THE  GIRL  WHO  IS  MISUNDER- 
STOOD 


VERY  girl  in  the  world  I  suppose 
has  sometime  in  her  life  felt  that  she  was 
misunderstood,  that  every  one  looked  at 
her  through  the  wrong  glasses,  that  no 
one  saw  her  good  qualities  or  appreci- 
ated her  abilities  and  that  all  with  whom 
she  had  to  do  interpreted  her  at  her 
worst.  The  cry  of  a  girl's  heart  for 
someone  who  understands  is  the  cry  of 
humanity.  No  one  can  perfectly  under- 
stand another,  therefore  only  God  can  be 
just.  And  so  in  a  sense  all  girls  are 
misunderstood.  But  there  are  special 
types  of  girls  who  suffer  more  from  be- 
ing misunderstood  by  their  families, 
neighbors,  friends,  and  by  strangers  than 
do  others. 

There  is  the  self-conscious  girl.  Shy 
and  made  awkward  by  her  shyness,  un- 
able to  forget  that  she  has  hands  and 
feet,  painfully  aware  that  she  must  walk 
41 


43         THE   GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

while  others  watch  her,  that  she  is  ex- 
pected to  say  something  and  those  who 
listen  will  criticize,  she  suffers  intensely. 
The  great  onrush  of  self  overwhelms 
her,  she  stammers,  blushes,  fingers  and 
eyes  help  to  reveal  her  suffering  and  as 
soon  as  possible  she  beats  a  retreat. 
How  intense  her  sufferings  are  only  those 
who  know  by  experience  can  say.  The 
shy  and  self-conscious  girl  will  always  be 
misunderstood.  People  may  be  very 
sorry  for  her  but  they  do  not  under- 
stand her.  She  needs  a  friend  who  has 
passed  through  the  self-conscious  stage  to 
sympathize  with  and  help  her,  or  some 
girl  quick  to  see  her  good  qualities  who 
can  show  confidence  in  her  and  smooth 
over  the  awkward  places  for  her,  until 
she  becomes  convinced  that  she  is  like 
other  girls  and  that  she  can  do  as  they 
do. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  change  which 
her  first  year  in  college  made  in  a  girl 
friend  of  mine.  In  the  high  school  she 
was  exceedingly  shy.  Her  recitations 
were  accompanied  by  so  much  suffering 
that  they  were  painful  to  witness.  Her 
written  tests  revealed  an  unusual  mind, 
keen  and  active.  She  won  the  prize  for 
the  best  essay  in  a  county  contest.  She 


THE  GIRL   WHO   IS    MISUNDERSTOOD       43 

was  asked  to  read  it  to  the  school  and 
though  she  begged  to  be  excused,  her 
teacher  insisted.  She  slept  little  and  ate 
little  during  the  days  before  it  must  be 
read  and  on  the  morning  when  the  school 
assembled  to  hear  it  looked  pale  and 
wan.  It  was  with  very  evident  effort 
that  she  walked  to  the  front  of  the  plat- 
form. Her  lips  opened  but  no  voice 
came.  Her  sister  thought  she  was  go- 
ing to  faint  but  she  pulled  herself  together 
and  was  able  to  read  in  a  thin  scared 
voice  which  could  not  be  heard  three 
seats  away.  But  those  who  heard  and 
those  who  read  marveled  at  the  thoughts 
which  the  girl  had  written  in  a  clear  and 
original  fashion.  Still  when  she  left  for 
college  she  was  a  misunderstood  and  un- 
appreciated girl  in  her  own  home  and 
among  her  neighbors. 

It  seemed  as  if  she  could  not  endure 
the  thought  of  a  roommate  but  necessity 
offered  no  alternative.  She  reached  the 
room  first  and  arranged  all  her  belong- 
ings in  her  accustomed  careful  and  or- 
derly way.  She  sat  by  the  window  lonely 
and  miserable,  trying  to  read,  when 
the  roommate  came.  She  was  a  rosy- 
cheeked,  laughing,  vivacious  girl  who 
greeted  her  as  if  she  had  always  known 


44          THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 

her  and  did  not  seem  to  notice  that  she 
received  monosyllabic  replies.  Before  an 
hour  had  passed  the  shy,  self-conscious 
girl  was  down  on  her  knees  helping 
her  new  friend  unpack  her  trunk  and 
talking  to  her  more  naturally  than  she 
had  ever  talked  with  anyone  before. 

The  new  roommate  was  a  very  wise 
girl,  a  little  older  than  most  girls  enter- 
ing college.  She  knew  that  the  girl  with 
whom  she  must  live  was  shy  the  moment 
she  caught  sight  of  her  and  felt  the 
dread  with  which  she  had  waited  her 
coming.  From  the  time  she  was  four- 
teen until  she  left  for  college  she  had 
helped  her  father  make  strangers  in  his 
church  and  congregation  feel  "  at  home." 
She  knew  just  how. 

During  the  first  trying  days  every  one 
greeted  the  shy  girl  cordially  and  then 
gave  their  attention  to  the  wide-awake, 
interesting  roommate.  But  the  room- 
mate always  included  her.  "  How  was 
it,  Clara?  I  don't  just  remember  what 
was  said,"  she  would  say,  suddenly  turn- 
ing to  the  girl  who  blushed  but  answered 
and  found  she  could,  to  her  great  sur- 
prise. Under  the  warmth  of  her  room- 
mate's confidence  in  her  and  pride  in  her 
scholarship  and  the  ease  with  which  she 


THE   GIRL    WHO    IS    MISUNDERSTOOD 


conquered  the  most  difficult  subjects  she 
learned  to  forget  herself.  A  great  long- 
ing to  help  the  girls  who  found  things 
hard  came  to  her  and  they  gladly  ac- 
cepted her  help  and  loved  her  for 
her  sympathy.  The  months  wrought  a 
marvelous  change  and  though  she  found 
it  difficult  in  the  presence  of  the  critical 
family  to  talk  naturally  at  first,  still  the 
things  she  had  to  tell  proved  so  inter- 
esting that  they  forgot  to  criticize  and 
she  forgot  herself  while  they  listened. 
At  the  High  School  Seniors'  banquet  she 
spoke  for  her  college  and  her  brother  de- 
clared it  the  best  speech  made. 

She  is  a  graduate  now  and  all  traces 
of  the  old  awkwardness  have  left  her. 

jljf  She  is  reserved  but  easy,  simple  and 
gracious  in  meeting  those  whom  her  work 
calls  her  to  meet  and  her  eye  and  her 
heart  alike  are  open  for  the  self-con- 
scious girl  wherever  she  meets  her.  If 
she  were  to  try  all  her  life,  she  tells  me, 

y  f\\  she  could  never  express  her  gratitude  for 
what  that  roommate  did  for  her. 

What  was  it  that  happened  to  her? 
She  forgot  herself.  People  had  told  her 
to  do  that  before  but  she  couldn't,  for  she 
felt  that  they  were  watching  to  see  her 
make  the  attempt.  They  called  atten- 


1 


w 


yi 


46 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


tion  to  her  shyness,  her  roommate  ig- 
nored it.  They  bade  her  take  part  in 
conversation  and  join  with  others  in  what 
they  were  doing;  her  roommate  gave  her 
a  part  in  the  conversation  and  made  a 
place  for  her  in  all  that  they  were  doing. 
Her  family  and  school  friends  said  by 
their  manner  and  sometimes  in  words, 
"  The  poor  girl  is  so  shy,  what  a  pity  it 
is."  The  roommate  expressed  calm 
confidence  in  her  and  in  manner  and  words 
said,  "  You  have  no  idea  how  fine  she 
is  and  how  well  worth  knowing." 

If  a  girl  chances  to  read  this  page  who 
is  herself  popular  and  who  finds  it  easy 
to  meet  people  and  join  naturally  in  what- 
ever her  neighbors  may  be  doing,  has  in 
her  circle  of  friends  a  shy,  awkward,  self- 
conscious  girl,  may  she  see  her  oppor- 
tunity and  realize  her  mission.  The 
pure  kindliness  of  heart  and  the  thought- 
fulness  which  prompts  a  happy  girl,  free 
from  the  pain  of  self-consciousness,  and 
always  at  ease  with  her  friends,  to  shelter, 
stand  by  and  call  out  the  best  in  a  shy 
girl  suffering  from  awkwardness  deserve 
a  rich  reward. 

The  very  opposite  of  the  girl  who  is 
misunderstood  and  undervalued  because 
of  her  shyness,  is  the  girl  who,  because 


THE   GIRL    WHO    IS    MISUNDERSTOOD        47 

of  her  boldness  and  independence,  her 
carelessness  of  speech,  hilarity  and  ad- 
venturesomeness  is  misunderstood. 

"  She  doesn't  mean  anything  by  it," 
said  one  girl  of  another  whom  she  was 
trying  to  defend  in  the  presence  of  a 
critic,  "  she  is  good  hearted,  generous 
and  just  fine,  but  she  has  been  brought 
up  in  a  large  family  where  they  have 
noisy  times  together."  The  critic  ac- 
cepted the  explanation  but  strangers,  new 
people  whom  she  met,  men  and  women 
upon  the  street,  constantly  misunderstood 
the  girl  whose  unfortunate  manners  would 
lead  one  to  believe  she  was  a  most  unde- 
sirable friend.  The  girl  was  conscious 
that  she  was  misjudged  and  misunder- 
stood and  was  growing  hard  and  begin- 
ning not  to  care  when  an  older  woman 
who  loved  her  showed  her  with  real  tact 
where  the  trouble  lay.  No  one  could 
help  admiring  that  girl  as  she  struggled 
to  overcome  the  things  which  had  been 
the  cause  of  all  the  misunderstandings. 

I  met  awhile  ago,  a  girl  whom  her 
companions  described  as  wooden.  I 
knew  that  she  wanted  to  talk  with  me, 
that  she  was  interested  in  the  people 
whom  the  group  were  discussing.  She 
seemed  like  a  bright  girl  and  I  felt  sure 


48          THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


that  she  had  thoughts  of  her  own  worth 
hearing  if  she  would  only  express  them. 
That  was  her  trouble.  She  couldn't 
find  words  so  she  said  "  yes,"  and  "  no  " 
with  effort  when  a  remark  was  addressed 
directly  to  her,  otherwise  she  was  silent. 
Later  in  the  day  a  girl  friend  who  really 
appreciated  her  told  me  how  very  in- 
teresting she  was  when  one  knew  her 
well  enough  to  dispel  the  awful  fear 
that  she  should  say  the  wrong  thing. 
She  read  the  very  best  things  and  was 
conversant  with  the  history  of  important 
events  all  over  the  world.  "  She  is  a 
regular  encyclopedia,"  -said  her  ardent 
defender. 

This  wooden  girl  is  misunderstood 
simply  because  she  has  not  learned  to 
express  the  thoughts  she  has.  She  is 
unhappy,  and  feels  that  people  do  not 
like  her,  and  do  not  enjoy  her  company. 
In  her  heart  she  blames  them.  But  one 
cannot  expect  everyone  to  penetrate  the 
exterior  and  see  and  appreciate  real 
worth.  Most  people  take  us  for  what 
we  seem  to  be  and  if  we  appear  cold,  un- 
interesting and  511  at  ease,  they  seek  pleas- 
anter  companions.  The  wooden  girl  can 
overcome  her  stiffness  and  learn  to  let 
people  see  that  she  thinks.  She  can  cul- 


tivate  a  very  rare  art  —  the  art  of  listen- 
ing with  appreciation.  There  are  very 
few  listeners  in  any  group  of  people  and 
often  not  one  in  a  group  of  women.  It 
is  a  great  thing  to  be  able  to  listen  with 
that  attention  and  interest  which  draws 
out  the  very  best  in  the  one  who  is  talk- 
ing. 

More  than  that  the  girl  who  is  termed 
wooden  can  learn  to  express  herself  in 
words.  She  may  never  become  a  great 
talker  but  she  need  not  regret  that.  She 
can  take  part  in  conversation  and  can 
make  it  easy  for  people  to  talk  with  her. 
I  know  a  girl  who  plans  before  spending 
a  social  evening  with  friends  what  she 
will  talk  about.  Following  the  advice  of 
her  mother  who  has  suffered  much 
through  inability  to  talk,  she  holds  imag- 
inary conversations  which  often  become 
real  when  she  meets  people  later.  She 
makes  a  special  effort  to  remember  the 
names  of  those  whom  she  meets  and 
some  of  the  things  in  which  they  are 
especially  interested.  She  is  learning  to 
remember  the  names  of  books  and  their 
authors  and  publishers,  she  takes  special 
pains  to  remember  worth  while  maga- 
zine articles  and  last  spring  people  ap- 
pealed to  her  again  and  again  for  in- 


K 


w 

1 

1 


5° 


THE    GIRL  AND    HER   RELIGION 


formation  regarding  the  Balkan  situa- 
tion. She  is  making  herself  an  interest- 
ing companion  and  in  a  few  years  I  be- 
lieve all  traces  of  the  awkward  wooden 
silence  will  disappear. 

In  the  long  line  of  misunderstood 
girls,  are  many  whose  interests  and 
enthusiasms  are  altogether  outside  their 
immediate  environment.  There  are 
girls  at  college  and  sometimes  at  board- 
ing-school who  have  seen  a  larger  world 
and  have  come  to  love  the  real  things 
of  life.  They  find  it  very  hard  to 
waste  the  days  in  superficialities.  They 
long  to  have  life  mean  more  than  a 
round  of  social  events,  and  the  family 
and  friends  misunderstand.  Some  girls 
of  this  sort  have  solved  the  problem  by 
gaining  consent  to  plan  their  own  days. 
Some  have  never  been  able  to  gain  that 
consent  and  have  gone  on  for  years  in  un- 
happiness.  Others  have  learned  to  in- 
ject into  the  seemingly  superficial  some 
real  things  and  have  found  an  outlet 
for  the  best  that  is  in  them  through 
work  for  those  in  need.  One  must  feel 
real  sympathy  for  the  girl  who,  striving 
to  be  her  best,  to  live  above  the  round 
of  pettiness  and  selfish  pleasure,  is  met 


w 

I! 


THE   GIRL    WHO   IS    MISUNDERSTOOD        51 

with  disapproval  and  misunderstanding. 

Many  a  girl  is  misunderstood  by  the 
one  person  in  the  world  who  ought  to 
understand  her  best  —  her  mother.  Per- 
haps more  bitter  tears  are  shed  by  girls 
because  their  mothers  do  not  understand 
than  for  any  other  reason.  The  misun- 
derstanding oftentimes  is  the  result  of 
temperament.  It  is  exceedingly  hard  for 
two  people  of  diametrically  opposite 
temperaments  to  live  in  close  association 
without  clashes.  One  of  the  most  piti- 
ful things  in  home  life  today  is  seen 
where  mother  and  daughter  have  oppo- 
site interests  and  sympathies  and  lack 
self-control.  The  constant  criticism  and 
judging  of  one  another,  the  quick-tem- 
pered commands  and  demands  on  the 
part  of  one  and  the  sullen  yielding  on 
the  part  of  the  other  make  one  heart- 
sick. 

I  am  reading  over  a  letter  from  a  girl 
who  says,  "  I  honestly  love  my  mother. 
I  am  proud  of  the  things  she  can  do  and 
I  admire  her  beauty.  ...  I  am  twenty- 
two  years  old,  very  ordinary  looking  and 
not  a  social  success.  I  am  a  constant  dis- 
appointment to  mother.  Our  opinions 
about  everything  differ.  We  cannot 
upon  the  most  trivial  things. 


II 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


When  father  was  living  he  laughed  at  us 
and  his  genial  spirit  made  things  easier 
but  the  last  two  years  have  been  dread- 
ful. What  can  we  do?  Mother  does 
not  need  me.  When  I  am  away  on  a 
visit  everything  goes  smoothly  at  home 
and  her  letters  to  me  are  affectionate. 
I  love  them  and  have  kept  them  to  read 
when  it  does  not  seem  as  if  she  could 
care  for  me.  My  uncle  has  asked  me  to 

come  to  their  home  in  D to  be  a 

companion  for  his  seventeen-year-old 
daughter  who  is  lame.  I  love  her  and 
we  get  on  well  together.  Ought  I  leave 
my  mother  and  go?  She  says  I  may  do 
just  as  I  wish  and  does  not  seem  to  mind 
the  thought  of  my  going.  .  .  ." 

Here  is  a  clear  case  of  clash  of  tem- 
peraments. Both  are  to  blame,  each  is 
misunderstood.  In  this  particular  case 
it  seems  wise  that  the  daughter  should, 
for  a  time  at  least,  accept  her  uncle's  of- 
fer. She  may  learn  from  a  distance  to 
understand  her  mother  better  and  her 
mother  may  more  fully  appreciate  her 
daughter.  Often  it  is  far  better  that  two 
people  who  constantly  clash  should  learn 
apart  to  respect  and  honor  one  another 
than  to  live  in  a  quarrelsome,  fretful  at- 
mosphere which  is  bound  to  banish  deep 


err 

I 
I 


f 


THE  GIRL   WHO   IS    MISUNDERSTOOD        53 

affection  and  respect  as  well.  Some 
daughters  cannot  be  their  best  at  home 
and  some  mothers  can  never  reveal  their 
best  selves  in  their  daughters'  presence. 
That  such  can  be  the  case  is  most  unfor- 
tunate and  wrong.  Away  back  in  the 
daughter's  childhood  someone  was  care- 
less, in  early  girlhood  a  thin  partition  was 
raised  which  shut  out  mutual  love  and 
trust.  It  might  then  have  been  de- 
stroyed, but  was  left  until  it  became  a 
barrier  almost  impossible  to  break  down. 
But  there  are  some  girls  who  are  mis- 
understood by  their  mothers,  and  who 
because  of  circumstances  must  accept  it 
and  learn,  despite  misunderstanding,  to 
let  love  triumph.  There  is  much  that 

•  w^l'^X 

every  girl  owes  to  her  mother  even  though 
it  be  true  that  she  is  unfair  and  unjust. 
One  of  the  sweetest  home  makers  I 
have  ever  known,  in  whose  family  it 
seems  to  me  no  cross  or  critical  word  is 
ever  spoken,  whose  boys  and  girls  trust 
her  absolutely  and  love  her  devotedly, 
learned  her  patience  and  forbearance,  ac- 
quired her  fine  courtesy  and  gracious- 
ness  in  the  years  when  she  was  a  misun- 
derstood girl  and  had  to  live  in  an  at- 
mosphere of  petulance,  ill-temper  and 
selfishness. 


54          THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

The  misunderstood  girl  whatever  may 
be  the  reason  for  the  misunderstanding 
must  cultivate  frankness.  She  must  learn 
to  be  generous,  she  must  help  people  to 
understand  her.  She  must  believe  that 
being  misunderstood  should  deepen  her 
sympathy  and  increase  her  tact.  One  of 
the  most  marvelous  teachers  in  our 
country  today,  who  succeeds  in  awaken- 
ing dull  hearts  and  minds,  in  controlling 
wayward  and  wilful  childhood,  when 
asked  to  explain  her  power  said  simply, 
"  I  was  a  misunderstood  child.  How  I 
suffered!  My  mission  is  to  relieve  the 
suffering  of  the  misunderstood,  whatever 
the  cause." 

There  is  a  very  brief  prayer  which 
every  misunderstood  girl  might  well  pray 
daily,  "  Help  us  to  understand  as  we 
long  to  be  understood." 


ffl 


VI 
THE  INDIFFERENT  GIRL 


U 


NTIL  she  has  entered  upon  her 
teens  the  attitude  of  the  "  don't-care  "  is 
rare  with  the  average  girl.  She  either 
heartily  approves  or  frankly  disapproves 
of  those  things  that  cross  her  path  or 
claim  her  attention.  But  with  the  com- 
ing of  the  teens  those  closely  associated 
with  the  girl  often  become  conscious  of 
the  loss  of  that  spontaneous  response 
which  has  made  her  such  a  delight.  The 
teacher  is  puzzled  by  this  change,  won- 
ders if  she  has  offended  the  girl,  re- 
doubles her  efforts  to  make  the  lesson 
interesting  and  seeks  to  win  the  girl's  con- 
fidence. Sometimes  her  efforts  are  re- 
warded by  renewed  interest  but  often  the 
attitude  of  indifference  persists.  The 
girl's  mother  feels  keenly  the  change  in 
her  once  expressive,  often  demonstrative 
child,  eager  to  talk  and  anxious  to  join  in 
everything,  and  says  in  a  tone  of  condem- 
nation that  she  cannot  understand  her 
daughter. 

55 


56          THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

The  presence,  in  a  class  of  ten  or 
twelve  girls,;of  even  one  indifferent  girl, 
or  the  presence  in  the  schoolroom  of  three 
or  four  such  girls,  chills  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  teacher  and  the  class.  Such  a  girl 
is  a  "  wet  blanket,"  she  is  a  cloud  steal- 
in  across  the  sun  on  a  glorious  morn- 
ing. Her  indifference  is  contagious.  She 
changes  the  atmosphere.  If  the  class  is 
planning  an  entertainment  she  u  does  not 
care  "  what  they  have,  she  does  not  care 
whether  she  has  any  part  in  it  or  not,  she 
has  no  choice  as  to  the  way  the  class 
funds  are  spent,  she  does  not  want  to 
look  up  any  assigned  topics,  do  any 
special  work,  or  take  part  in  any  debate 
or  discussion. 

She  is  a  very  real  problem  to  teacher, 
parents  and  friends.     To  be  able  to  di- 
agnose her  trouble  correctly  and  find  a 
remedy  for  it  is  well  worth  every  effort 
of  those  who  have  her  present  and  future 
in  charge.     Before  one  can  hope  to  help   p/ 
her  he  must  discover  the  cause  of  her 
trouble.     Reprimanding   her  is   of  little 
avail,  and  discussing  her  indifference  with  Q 
her  is  useless. 

Some  years  ago  a  young  teacher  in  the 
eighth  grade  in  a  public  school  consulted 
me  regarding  a  girl  of  fourteen  whose 


THE   INDIFFERENT   GIRL 


57 


indifference  was  a  great  source  of  trial. 
The  girl  came  to  school  with  fair  reg- 
ularity. At  ten  and  eleven  she  had  been 
considered  a  very  bright  pupil  but  was 
now  below  the  average  in  all  her  work. 
She  often  expressed  the  wish  that  she 
need  not  go  to  school  but  when  allowed 
to  remain  at  home  was  restless  and  un- 
happy. 

Observation  of  the  girl  in  class  showed 
all  that  the  young  teacher  had  said  to 
be  true.  The  girl  took  no  voluntary 
part  in  the  recitation  and  when  called 
upon  her  usual  answer  was  "  I  don't 
know."  I  talked  with  her  and  she  said 
she  liked  the  teacher,  she  liked  the  school 
and  her  classmates.  She  did  not  care 
about  them  especially.  She  did  not 
know  whether  she  would  go  to  high 
school  or  not;  she  "didn't  care  either 
way."  She  did  not  know  what  she 
wanted  to  do  when  she  grew  older.  Her 
excuse  for  falling  so  far  behind  her  rec- 
ord of  other  years  and  her  unwillingness 
to  recite  was  that  she  did  not  feel  like 
studying  and  that  she  could,  not  seem  to 
remember  what  she  read.  She  said  she 
felt  well  but  she  was  growing  very  rap- 
idly and  did  not  seem  strong. 

I  called  upon  her  mother  and  learned 


58          THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 

that  she  was  greatly  concerned  because 
of  the  changes  in  her  daughter.  I  was 
surprised  to  find,  however,  that  she  stated 
quite  calmly  that  the  girPs  appetite  was 
not  good  and  that  she  complained  of 
being  unable  to  sleep  and  of  having 
11  dreadful  dreams."  The  mother  had 
not  consulted  a  physician.  She  scolded 
the  girl  for  being  lazy  and  indifferent; 
at  school  the  teacher  reprimanded  her 
constantly.  I  urged  the  mother  by  all 
the  arguments  I  knew  to  see  a  physician 
at  once.  She  said  her  husband  seriously 
objected  to  one's  "  running  to  the  doctor 
all  the  time,"  and  that  he  thought  the 
girl  would  come  out  all  right.  If  she 
did  not  "  brace  up  pretty  soon,"  she 
added,  they  might  "  take  her  out  of 
school  and  put  her  to  work."  During 
the  winter  the  girl  contracted  a  heavy 
cold  and  her  indifference  and  apparent 
laziness  increased.  The  mother  was 
finally  enough  impressed  by  our  concern 
for  the  girl  to  take  her  to  a  good  phy- 
sician. He  found  her  to  be  in  a  very 
run-down  state,  in  bad  condition  nerv- 
ously, and  really  ill. 

A  year  out  of  school,  spent  in  a  country 
town  with  her  aunt,  where  she  had  the 


THE   INDIFFERENT    GIRL 


59 


best  of  food,  fresh  air  and  exercise,  cured 
this  indifferent  girl  entirely. 

Continual  headache  is  often  the  cause 
of  indifference,  and  eye  strain  or  im- 
proper food  the  cause  of  the  headache. 
The  first  duty  of  those  in  charge  of  the 
indifferent  girl,  before  passing  judgment 
upon  her,  is  to  make  sure  that  the  phys- 
ical condition  is  not  at  the  bottom  of 
the  trouble.  Many  a  case  of  indifference 
and  loss  of  spontaneous  interest,  which 
cannot  be  cured  by  punishment,  by  per- 
suasion, by  prayers  or  exhortation,  can  be 
cured  by  a  wise  physician. 

Sometimes  a  girl  becomes  indifferent 
from  lack  of  a  sympathetic  environment. 
She  feels  that  othes  do  not  care  about 
her  and  that  what  she  does  makes  no  real 
difference  to  any  one.  She  may  be  sur- 
rounded by  poverty,  where  the  struggle  to 
exist  is  so  keen  that  there  is  no  time  to 
think  of  the  girl  and  her  needs,  or  she 
may  have  every  luxury  yet  be  denied  the 
companionship  of  one  who  understands. 

I  am  thinking  now  of  a  girl  of  fifteen, 
who  does  not  seem  in  any  way  to  belong 
in  the  family  where  she  was  born.  Her 
sisters  are  at  work  in  the  factory  and 
content.  They  are  sweet,  attractive  and 


6o 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 


good.  But  she  does  not  want  to  work 
in  the  factory.  She  would  "  give  the 
world  to  have  a  room  alone,  that  could 
be  all  fixed  up/'  as  she  would  like  it. 
The  family  cannot  understand  her.  She 
can  have  none  of  the  things  for  which 
she  longs,  she  is  not  able  to  be  with  the 
sort  of  people  she  loves  and  admires. 
She  wants  good  books,  she  enjoys  music 
and  longs  to  be  permitted  to  finish  her 
high  school  course.  She  is  willing  to 
work  out  of  school  hours,  to  do  anything 
if  only  she  may  continue  to  study.  Be- 
cause the  family  consider  all  her  notions 
«  i  ridiculous,  and  all  she  longs  for  seems 
impossible,  the  don't-care,  reckless  spirit 
.and  the  indifferent  "what's  the  use 
anyway "  are  gradually  enveloping  her 
whole  life. 

Surrounded  by  much  that  money  can 
buy,  a  most  interesting  girl  whom  I  met 
recently  is  surrendering  all  her  interests 
to  the  "  don't-care  "  spirit  because  the 
one  great  desire  of  her  heart  is  not  to  be 
gratified.  She  has  been  urged  to  enter 
upon  the  duties  of  the  social  world  but 
says  she  has  tried  it  and  "  despises  so- 
ciety." She  does  not  care  about  travel, 
she  wants  to  be  trained  as  a  nurse,  enter 
a  school  of  philanthropy  and  then  be- 


THE   INDIFFERENT    GIRL 


61 


come  a  district  worker  among  the  poor. 
Her  father  will  not  listen  to  the  plan, 
her  aunt  opposes  it,  her  brother  laughs 
at  it. 

She  says  that  now  since  all  her  most 
earnest  desires  can  never  be  fulfilled  she 
doesn't  care  about  anything.  It  was  a 
long  time  before  the  teacher  of  the  Bible 
class  of  which  she  was  a  member  could 
believe  that  this  indifferent  girl  whose 
silence  had  annoyed  her  each  Sunday  was 
longing  to  serve  her  fellowmen  and  had 
lost  heart  because  the  way  was  blocked. 
It  was  only  when  she  had  made  a  special 
and  earnest  attempt  to  really  know  the 
girl  that  she  learned  the  truth. 

No  one  can  act  wisely  in  the  dark,  and 
before  passing  judgment  upon  the  indif- 
ferent girl  who  may  try  one's  soul,  he 
should  know  whether  in  the  thwarting  of 
all  her  desires,  the  denial  of  the  right  to 
follow  her  natural  inclination  for  work 
and  service,  lies  the  explanation  of  her 
indifference. 

Many  times  the  girl  who  seems  in- 
different, is  so  only  on  the  outside.  She 
has  developed  more  as  a  boy  develops 
and  does  not  wish  to  reveal  her  best  self, 
nor  even  in  the  least  degree  her  deeper 
feelings.  She  hides.  When  things  are 


O2          THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

very  serious  or  pathetic  she  sometimes 
laughs  half  nervously.  She  looks  out  of 
the  window,  at  the  ceiling,  whispers  to  her 
neighbor  or  assumes  the  most  disinter- 
ested, superior  air  possible  if  she  is  at  all 
impressed.  When  one  sees  her  alone,  it 
is  a  great  surprise  to  discover  a  new  girl 
who  is  by  no  means  indifferent,  who  has 
thoughts  and  can  express  them  when 
other  girls  are  not  there  to  listen.  Her 
indifference  is  not  a  serious  matter,  is 
usually  of  short  duration  and  is  explained 
by  the  attitude  of  self-sufficiency  which 
manifests  itself  in  the  teens. 

The  girl  really  indifferent  to  every- 
thing, unless  she  be  ill,  does  not  exist* 
There  is  a  point  of  contact,  a  line  of  in- 
terest. The  girl  indifferent  to  religion, 
to  the  work  of  the  church,  to  her  studies, 
may  be  keenly  alive  to  the  call  of  other 
things  —  her  friends,  plans  for  her  fu- 
ture, all  lines  of  social  life.  Last  sum- 
mer I  met  a  girl  of  seventeen,  indifferent 
to  all  interests  save  nature  study.  She 
had  failed  in  the  languages,  was  defeated 
by  mathematics,  but  could  sit  hours  in 
the  woods  waiting  for  a  tiny  bird,  or  a 
squirrel  to  pose  for  her.  She  had  made 
some  remarkable  photographs  and  tinted 
them  beautifully. 


THE  INDIFFERENT   GIRL  63 

The  usual  social  interests  of  the  girls 
of  her  age  bored  her.  Her  mother 
stated  to  sympathetic  friends  that  the  girl 
was  hopeless,  indifferent  to  every  plan 
for  her  future.  The  girl  in  turn  said 
half  defiantly,  that  she  did  not  care,  and 
it  made  no  difference  to  her  what  people 
thought  of  her.  It  would  have  been  so 
easy  had  the  right  guidance  been  given, 
to  help  the  girl  see  the  great  need  a  real 
naturalist  would  one  day  feel  for  the 
languages,  to  show  her  that  she  had  some 
social  duties  and  to  let  them  be  as  few 
as  possible,  giving  her  every  opportunity 
to  develop  her  special  talents  and  in- 
terests. But  the  wise  guiding  hand  was 
not  present  and  so  the  girl  grew  hard, 
indifferent,  and  created  an  atmosphere 
of  constant  friction. 

Into  a  night  court  in  one  of  the  cities 
there  was  brought  an  exceedingly  pretty 
girl  just  out  of  her  teens.  She  seemed 
wholly  indifferent  to  any  moral  appeal 
and  conscience  was  evidently  dead.  She 
would  make  no  promises  for  future  good- 
behavior,  she  showed  no  evidence  of 
shame.  She  was  unmoved  by  the  ma- 
tron's words  of  appeal.  When  she  found 
that  she  was  to  be  detained  through  the 
day  she  begged  the  woman  probation  of* 


64          THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

ficer  to  go  with  her  to  her  home  saying 
that  her  mother  was  ill  and  she  feared 
the  result  if  she  did  not  return  as  usual. 
With  a  great  desire  to  befriend  the  girl 
the  officer  went.  She  found  a  sweet 
pale-faced  woman  suffering  from  incur- 
able heart  trouble,  a  bright  beautiful  girl 
of  sixteen  who  was  taking  the  business 
course  in  the  high  school  and  a  ten-year- 
old  boy.  The  flat  was  airy,  neatly  fur- 
nished and  seemed  a  very  happy  home. 
The  girl  told  her  mother  that  she  had 
had  breakfast  and  must  be  away  that  day 
on  business  but  would  return  for  supper. 
The  love  of  that  mother  for  the  daugh- 
ter who  bade  her  good-by  so  tenderly, 
the  evident  affection  of  the  younger  sister 
and  the  admiration  of  the  boy  greatly 
impressed  the  officer. 

The  girl  walked  in  silence  back  to  the 
station,  then  she  broke  down. 

"  Now,  you  see  why  I  chose  the  street 
to  make  a  living,"  she  said.  "  We  used 
father's  life  insurance  and  mother  had  to 
have  things.  She  will  not  live  a  month 
now,  the  doctor  says.  My  sister  can  soon 
earn  her  own  living  and  I  can  help  Fred 
until  he  is  old  enough  to  help  himself, 
by  working  in  my  old  position.  But  for 
a  while  I  must  have  money!  I  hate  my- 


THE   INDIFFERENT    GIRL 


rn 

1 
i 


self,  you  understand,  but  I  had  to  have 
the  money.  Oh,  mother,  mother,  it  is 
the  last  thing  you  would  have  me  do, 
but  I  did  it  for  you  and  the  children," 
she  sobbed.  This  was  the  hard,  indif- 
ferent girl  who  didn't  care  for  anything. 
The  matron  and  officer  looking  at  the 
sobbing  girl  recorded  one  more  tragedy 
upon  the  annals  of  their  experience  and 
set  about  helping  one  more  girl  back  into 
the  straight  way. 

In  how  many  types  we  find  her,  the 
indifferent  girl  and  the  girl  who  does 
not  care,  and  for  what  varied  reasons 
indifference  and  the  don't  care  spirit  have 
fallen  upon  her.  Whatever  the  cause 
of  her  indifference  she  is  a  problem.  One 
of  the  High  School  girls  in  a  group  dis- 
cussing another  girl  put  it  quite  forcefully 
when  she  said,  "  Yes,  I'd  like  to  help 
Alice,  but  she  doesn't  want  to  be  helped. 
She  just  doesn't  care  about  anything.  If 
you  don't  invite  her  she  doesn't  seem  to 
mind,  if  you  do  she  doesn't  care  whether 
she  goes  or  not.  I'd  rather  die  than  not 
care  about  anything"  "  Such  people 
are  so  uncomfortable  to  have  around,  I'd 
rather  have  a  girl  who  gets  mad,"  was 
the  opinion  of  another  in  the  group. 
Young  people  feel  naturally  that  there  is 


66 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


something  vitally  wrong  about  the  girl 
who  has  no  enthusiasm,  whom  all  the 
interesting  life  of  every  day  fails  to 
arouse.  And  there  is  something  wrong. 
The  problem  facing  those  who  have  to 
do  with  the  indifferent,  don't  care  girl 
is  to  find  what  is  wrong.  Indifference  is 
merely  a  symptom  —  there  is  always  a 
cause.  One  may  discover  if  he  will  the 
things  to  which  the  girl  is  not  indifferent, 
her  real  interests.  Knowing  these,  he 
sees  the  door  through  which  he  must  go 
to  awaken  other  interests.  Sympathy 
and  friendship  are  the  foes  of  indiffer- 
ence. If  one  "  feels  with  "  the  girl  who 
does  not  care,  he  may  help  to  awaken 
her  interests.  Friendship  can  discover 
causes  which  nothing  else  can  find. 

But  there  is  one  word  which  must  be 
stricken  from  the  vocabulary  of  parents, 
teachers  and  friends,  who  hope  to  awaken 
the  indifferent  girl.  It  is  the  word 
hopelessly.  Hopelessly  dull,  hopelessly 
bad,  hopelessly  indifferent!  Experience 
teaches  that  these  must  go.  No  teacher 
has  a  hopeless  pupil,  no  mother  has  a 
hopeless  daughter.  One  may  regard  the 
indifferent  girl  as  a  difficult  problem  but 
never  a  hopeless  one.  Behind  the  indif- 


THE  INDIFFERENT   GIRL  6? 

ference  and  the  don't-care  is  the  real  girl 
and  one  must  with  patience  and  sym- 
pathy find  her. 


VII 

THE  GIRL  WHO  WORSHIPS  THE 
TWIN  IDOLS 


T, 


HE  twin  idols  that  accept  with  all 
the  complacency  of  an  ancient  Buddha 
the  devotion  of  more  worshipers  than 
any  church  or  creed  can  claim  are  Fash- 
ion and  Pleasure.  Not  sane  fashion 
which  helps  make  men  and  women  at- 
tractive and  clothes  them  with  neatness 
and  care,  protects  them  by  courtesies,  and 
shields  them  by  conventionalities,  but 
mad  fashion.  Not  real  pleasure  that 
fills  eye  with  delight  and  days  with  hap- 
piness that  will  be  remembered  even 
when  one  is  old  and  days  are  dark  and 
hard  but  mad  pleasure,  the  thief  and  rob- 
ber. 

What  costly  sacrifices  are  offered  every 
hour  of  the  day  and  night  to  the  twin 
idols.  When  men  and  women  away  back 
in  the  dim  past  laid  their  children  in  the 
hands  of  Baal  they  made  their  weird 
music,  sang  their  wild  songs  and  shouted 
aloud  that  they  might  drown  the  appeal 

68 


SHE    WORSHIPS    PLEASURE    AND    FASHION 


GIRL  WHO   WORSHIPS  "TWIN  IDOLS        69 

of  the  sacrifice.  The  dark  ages  have 
passed.  It  is  the  enlightened  age  —  and 
yet  with  music  and  shoutings,  weird 
dancings  and  songs  men  and  women  to- 
day drown  the  appeal  of  the  costly  sac- 
rifice laid  on  the  altar  before  Fashion  and 
Pleasure. 

There  in  her  room  sits  Ellen  Gregg, 
that  is  she  used  to  be  Ellen,  she  is  now 
deeply  offended  if  friends  forget  to  call 
her  Eleanor.  She  is  an  ardent  worshiper 
of  the  Idols.  When  she  was  twelve 
and  fourteen  she  was  a  frank,  contented, 
happy  girl,  simple  in  her  tastes  and  able 
to  have  a  good  time  in  most  inexpensive 
ways.  A  trolley  ride  to  a  park  and  sup- 
per under  the  trees  she  looked  forward 
to  for  days  and  enjoyed  in  retrospect,  un- 
til a  trip  to  the  lake,  a  concert,  a  visit 
to  the  picture  galleries,  or  a  shopping 
tour  down  town  where  she  spent  the 
twenty-five  cents  she  had  earned  and 
saved,  gave  her  another  happy  day  to 
remember.  Eleanor  is  now  eighteen 
and  she  has  been  at  work  for  two  years. 
She  needs  plain  becoming  dresses,  plenty 
of  shirt  waists,  sensible,  pretty  shoes, 
rubbers,  a  rain-coat,  a  suit,  two  be- 
coming hats,  for  it  is  the  beginning 
of  winter.  But  she  has  none  of  these 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


things.  She  has  just  been  kneeling  be- 
fore the  altar  and  has  laid  her  costly 
sacrifice  of  common  sense  and  comfort, 
perhaps  of  health,  there  in  the  presence 
of  Fashion  and  Pleasure.  Her  face  is 
troubled  as  she  sits  there  in  her  room  for 
the  memory  of  her  mother's  reproof  and 
her  brother's  disapproval  stings  a  little. 
But  in  a  moment  she  looks  toward  the 
bed.  Lying  upon  it,  smoothed  out  care- 
fully, is  the  result  of  the  sacrifice  — 
a  thin  silk  gown  of  palest  blue  draped 
with  a  fragile  chiffon,  trimmed  and 
caught  up  with  crystal  drops  and  tiny 
rosebuds.  It  is  a  pretty  thing.  Besides 
it  is  a  spotless  white  outing  coat,  rough, 
and  to  quote  the  words  of  the  clerk  who 
helped  her  select  it,  "  exceedingly  mod- 
ish." There  are  pale  blue  stockings  and 
pumps.  She  did  hesitate  about  the 
pumps  but  they  were  there.  The  hat 
was  there  too.  She  hoped  to  go  perhaps 
to  two  dances,  she  knew  she  should  go  to 
the  theater,  for  she  already  had  an  in- 
vitation and  there  might  be  another. 
Besides  that  she  intended  to  go  herself 
and  invite  one  of  the  girls  if  she  were 
able  to  get  all  the  things  paid  for  before 
the  theater  season  was  over.  Last  year 
everything  got  shabby  so  quickly  and 


GIRL  WHO   WORSHIPS  TWIN   IDOLS        Jl 

"  looked  like  a  rag,"  before  the  season 
was  over  but  she  hoped  for  better  luck 
this  time.  She  rose  and  put  her  new  pos- 
sessions away  very  carefully  in  the  little 
closet  and  boxes  and  turned  to  the  mir- 
ror. The  hair  dresser  had  shown  her  a 
new  way  to  dress  her  hair  and  she  tried 
it  now  herself.  After  a  long  time  she 
met  with  fair  success.  She  did  not  call 
the  family  to  see  the  result,  for  there 
might  be  more  words  of  disapproval  and 
though  they  would  not  influence  her  in 
the  least  still  it  was  a  bore  to  listen  to 
them.  The  new  arrangement  was  very 
uncomfortable  and  it  did  seem  strange  to 
be  apparently  without  ears  but  she  was 
an  earnest  devotee  and  what  it  pleased 
the  idol  to  dictate,  that  she  did.  Next 
she  tried  the  new  concoctions  for  cheeks 
and  eyebrows.  The  result  pleased  her. 
She  called  to  her  mother  to  ask  the  time 
and  exclaiming  at  the  lateness  of  the  hour 
called  back  that  she  was  dead  tired  and 
would  go  to  bed.  When  she  hung  up  her 
skirt  she  was  dismayed  to  see  how  worn 
it  was.  She  had  paid  for  the  style  in  it, 
not  for  the  material.  She  did  not  go  to 
sleep  directly  though  she  had  a  right  to 
be  tired,  for  she  had  to  get  up  very  early 
each  morning  and  she  was  obliged  to 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


stand  all  day  at  her  work.  But  she  was 
troubled.  Even  the  pleasure  of  possess- 
ing the  clothes  so  carefully  protected  in 
the  closet  could  not  take  away  the  anxiety 
produced  by  the  conscious  need  of  rub- 
bers and  a  winter  suit.  But  at  last  the 
poor  little  devotee,  the  ardent  worshiper 
of  the  twin  idols,  worn  out  by  thinking 
of  it  all  fell  asleep. 

Over  on  Blank  Street,  in  another  part 
of  town  that  day,  another  worshiper 
and  her  devoted  mother  had  been  talking 
over  plans  for  the  future.  Both  were 
"  climbers,"  at  least  they  thought  it  was 
climbing.  They  had  social  ambitions  and 
it  was  whispered  by  their  enemies  that 
they  intended,  at  whatever  cost  to  enter 
the  inner  circle  of  those  who  worshiped 
the  idols.  Last  year  the  young  girl  who 
wanted  to  go  to  college  had  "  come  out.11 
It  had  been  a  wonderful  season  but  it  had 
left  her  with  a  pale  face  and  dark  circles 
under  her  lovely  eyes.  The  rest  cure 
had  done  much  for  her  but  her  physician 
had  said  another  season  in  town  would 
undo  all  that  had  been  done.  Her 
mother  was  loath  to  believe  it.  She 
had  always  been  able  to  dismiss  her  hus- 
band's arguments  and  had  done  so  suc- 
cessfully the  night  before  when  he  plead 


GIRL  WHO  WORSHIPS  TWIN  IDOLS        73 

for  a  year  of  roughing  it  in  the  west, 
society  forgotten  and  the  things  of  nature 
for  amusement  and  fun.  "  If  we  drop 
out  now,"  she  told  her  daughter,  "  all  is 
lost.''  And  so  they  made  their  plans. 
The  daughter  was  not  an  adept  in  learn- 
ing the  rapid  succession  of  combination 
dances  wherein  orientalism,  the  harem, 
the  submerged  tenth,  and  the  various 
beasts  of  the  field  and  fowls  of  the  barn- 
yard figured,  so  the  first  step  was  to 
secure  a  teacher  who  would  correct  her 
errors  and  give  her  skill  in  the  perform- 
ances which  had  robbed  so  many  of  her 
friends  of  all  reserve  and  had  taught 
them  the  abandonment  of  motion. 

She  had  tried  to  take  a  nap  that  after- 
noon but  sleep  would  not  come  though 
she  obeyed  all  the  rules  for  capturing 
it.  Her  father's  blood  was  in  her  veins 
and  even  her  training  had  failed  to  ob- 
literate all  of  the  hard  sense  which  had 
helped  him  pass  his  neighbors  in  the  race 
for  money  which  should  win  the  coveted 
title  "  A  Success." 

She  did  not  like  the  dances,  she  knew 
she  was  not  equal  to  the  round  of  varied 
functions  that  lay  before  her.  But  she 
was  a  worshiper  —  she  blindly  followed 
Fashion  —  she  bowed  in  the  presence  of 


74 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 


Pleasure  —  and  at  last  sighing  wearily, 
murmured  softly,  "  Well,  there  is  no 
way  out.  Mother  has  set  her  heart  on  it 
and  one  might  as  well  die  as  to  be  out 
of  everything  "  —  she  laid  her  sacrifice 
upon  the  altar,  took  up  a  book  and 
stopped  thinking. 

It  is  easy  to  think  that  she  is  but  one, 
and  perhaps  the  great  exception,  that  be- 
cause she  is  not  physically  strong  she 
shrinks  from  the  long  gay  season.  But 
she  is  only  one  of  many,  some  very  young 
and  strong,  and  some  in  the  twenties  who 
have  hearts  and  find  them  unsatisfied,  who 
long  to  be  free  but  held  in  the  grip  of 
the  twin  idols  at  last  bow  down  and  wor- 
ship. 

In  the  home  of  a  shoemaker  where 
food  was  coarse  but  plentiful  and  where 
the  loose  casements  and  cracks  in  walls 
and  doors  defied  all  efforts  to  keep  out 
the  air,  grew  up  a  little  rosy-cheeked, 
black-haired  girl.  When  she  was  four- 
teen she  was  tall  for  her  age,  her  black 
hair  was  abundant  and  beautiful,  her 
large,  dark  eyes  snapped  and  sparkled  in 
laughter  or  in  anger.  She  went  to  work. 
As  yet  she  had  thought  little  about  the 
twin  idols.  Before  the  year  had  passed, 
she  knelt  before  them.  At  the  end  of  the 


GIRL   WHO   WORSHIPS  TWIN   IDOLS        75 


ft 


second  year  she  had  offered  in  their 
name,  truth  and  honesty  in  exchange  for 
furs,  a  silver  purse  and  a  beautiful  neck- 
lace. Her  parents  unable  to  speak  Eng- 
lish, ready  to  believe  that  anything  was 
possible  in  the  new  land  suspected  noth- 
ing. Before  the  close  of  the  third  year, 
when  she  was  but  seventeen,  in  mad  devo- 
tion to  Fashion  and  Pleasure,  she  had 
laid  herself,  a  living  sacrifice  upon  the 
altar. 

In  the  same  city  where  she  had  fol- 
lowed so  madly  in  pursuit  of  pleasure  and 
dress,  in  a  comfortable  home  upon  one 
of  the  new  avenues  where  young  shade 
trees,  modern  houses,  neatly  trimmed 
lawns,  all  spoke  of  the  young  people  just 
starting  out  for  themselves,  there  lived 
a  family  trying  in  vain  to  find  happiness. 
Both  were  young,  she  only  twenty,  he 
twenty-two.  She  worshiped  the  idols. 
He  worshiped  her.  She  had  social  am- 
bitions. She  needed  money  to  carry  them 
out.  He  got  it  as  fast  as  he  could  and 
he  was  doing  pretty  well.  But  it  was  not 
enough.  That  night  they  had  said  bitter 
words  to  each  other,  then  had  repented 
and  he  had  begged  her  to  be  careful,  to 
try  for  a  while  to  do  without  unnecessary 
things  for  his  sake  and  said  that  she  was 


1 


^r: 


76          THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

more  beautiful  than  any  of  the  more 
richly  dressed  women  he  knew  and  that 
she  ought  to  be  content.  She  promised 
to  try.  But  it  was  of  no  use.  She  heard 
the  call  of  the  idols.  She  could  not  re- 
sist and  bowed  down  and  worshiped 
them.  Before  the  year  had  passed  she 
had  plunged  into  hopeless  debt  and  in 
her  mad  devotion  sacrificed  her  husband 
with  all  his  hopes  and  honest  ambitions 
upon  the  altar.  The  music,  the  lights, 
the  dresses,  the  compliments,  the  promise 
of  opening  doors  into  the  society  in  which 
she  wanted  to  shine,  for  a  time  drowned 
the  sight  of  his  suffering  and  pain.  Then 
suddenly  he  yielded  to  temptation,  was 
discovered  taking  money  that  was  not 
his  and  the  gods  of  fashion  and  pleasure 
forgot  them  both;  the  doors  of  society 
closed  and  she  was  left  with  nothing  but 
her  bitter  thoughts.  It  was  a  costly  sac- 
rifice but  a  common  one  which  the  Idols 
accept  again  and  again. 

Hardly  two  blocks  below  was  another 
home  with  its  lawn,  its  flowers,  its  neat 
window  boxes  and  its  young  trees. 
There  in  his  nursery  was  a  little  two- 
year-old.  He  stretched  out  his  hand  to 
his  mother  and  cried  when  she  passed 
through  the  hall  and  down  stairs.  He 


V-J  "J 

& 


•  \y 


m 

(  *  2 


GIRL  WHO  WORSHIPS  TWIN   IDOLS        77 

had  not  been  well  for  some  days  and 
missed  his  old  nurse  who  had  been  dis- 
missed for  a  slight  offense  the  week  be- 
fore. He  did  not  like  the  new  nurse. 
His  mother  did  not  know  much  about 
her.  She  seemed  kind  and  she  was  very 
courteous  in  her  manner.  The  mother 
was  going  in  her  friend's  machine,  out  to 
the  club-house  for  bridge.  She  was  a  lit- 
tle late  and  could  not  stop  though  the 
child  had  looked  very  pitiful  and  rather 
pale.  He  still  cried  despite  the  nurse's 
warnings,  coaxings  and  threats.  At  last 
she  grew  impatient,  seized  him  and  shook 
him  until  there  was  no  breath  left  to 
scream,  laid  him  on  his  little  bed  and  left 
the  room.  After  a  while  soft,  heart- 
broken baby  sobs  came  from  the  tired 
child  and  he  lay  still  as  she  had  bidden 
him. 

At  the  club  women  dressed  in  all  the 
extremes  of  fashion,  laughed  and  chatted 
or  grew  tense  and  strained  as  they  ex- 
changed their  cards.  Over  in  one  corner 
some  of  the  younger  women  blew  curls 
of  smoke  into  the  air.  The  baby's 
mother  sat  there. 

It  seemed  very  lonely  to  the  little  boy 
lying  in  his  nursery.  The  sobs  ceased, 
the  baby  grew  interested  in  life  once  more, 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 


climbed  over  the  side  of  the  bed,  slipped 
to  the  floor,  softly  opened  the  door  into 
the  hall.  His  eyes  were  swollen  and  he 
was  weak  from  the  shaking  and  the  strain 
of  the  day  and  when  he  reached  the  shin- 
ing staircase,  his  foot  slipped. 

The  nurse's  face  grew  pale  when  she 
picked  up  the  unconscious  child.  The 
doctor  said  he  would  live  but  the  spine 
seemed  to  be  injured  and  the  full  result 
of  the  fall  he  could  not  predict. 

While  they  were  bending  anxiously 
over  him,  he  opened  his  eyes  and  said 
"  Muvver."  Just  then  she  entered  the 
hall  and  they  could  hear  the  congratu- 
latory words  of  her  friend.  She  had 
won.  Then  she  started  up  the  stairs. 
Let  us  draw  the  curtain,  for  on  the  altar 
of  Fashion  and  Pleasure  a  mother  has 
offered  as  a  sacrifice,  her  child. 

You  who  have  read  this  chapter  have 
been  looking  with  me  upon  a  series  of 
rapidly  moving  pictures.  Perhaps  they 
have  seemed  too  dramatic  as  they  have 
passed.  But  they  are  not  fiction  —  they 
picture  facts.  They  are  not  in  the  past. 
The  same  scenes  are  being  repeated  now 
all  over  our  country  and  across  the  sea. 
No  one  can  number  the  worshipers  of 
the  Twin  Idols  and  no  one  can  estimate 


I 


GIRL  WHO   WORSHIPS  TWIN   IDOLS        79 

the  awful  cost  of  the  devotion  of  their 
followers. 

It  is  right  that  a  girl  should  enjoy 
pretty  clothes  and  desire  them.  It  is 
right  that  she  should  spend  a  fair  part 
of  her  income  on  the  necessary  gowns 
for  parties  and  pleasures.  It  is  right  that 
girls  should  seek  pleasure  and  enjoy  life 
to  the  full.  It  is  right  that  young 
mothers  keep  their  youth  and  enjoy  the 
society  of  their  friends.  But  when  girl- 
hood erects  an  altar  and  in  the  presence 
of  Fashion  and  Pleasure  sacrifices  time 
and  strength,  money,  honesty,  thrift  and 
virtue,  then  it  is  sin  and  the  individual 
and  society  must  suffer.  At  this  present 
moment  in  our  country,  as  in  the  ages 
past  in  nations  and  with  peoples  that  are 
now  being  forgotten,  girlhood  is  worship- 
ing the  Twin  Idols  and  one  is  compelled 
to  ask  himself  if  the  final  result  will  be 
the  same. 

It  is  not  alone  the  rich  girl  who  bows 
the  knee  in  the  presence  of  Fashion  and 
offers  her  best  to  Pleasure,  the  poor  girl 
also  worships.  In  the  multitude  that 
bow  are  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
girls. 

We  wait  for  a  prophet.  A  prophet 
that  shall  awaken  womanhood  and  girl- 


8o 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


hood  and  show  them  that  to  be 
well  dressed  means  to  be  appropriately 
dressed,  that  extravagant  overdressing  is 
clear  evidence  of  the  lack  of  good  breed- 
ing and  good  taste;  that  those  who  in- 
dulge in  clothes  which  they  cannot  afford 
and  those  who  make  of  themselves  living 
models  for  the  exhibition  of  the  latest 
extravagances,  both  proclaim  the  un- 
worthy station  in  life  where  they  truly 
belong. 

We  need  a  prophet  who  shall  awaken 
womanhood  and  girlhood  to  see  that  the 
wild  rush  for  sensational  and  unhealthful 
pleasures  has  always  meant  one  thing  — 
final  inability  to  enjoy,  the  day  when  all 
pleasures  pall. 

Would  that  the  prophet  might  come, 
and  speedily,  that  our  girls  might  stand 
up  on  their  feet  free,  no  more  slaves 
to  Fashion  or  servants  of  Pleasure. 
Free  —  their  faces  clear,  tinted  and  rosy 
with  the  keen  joy  of  living.  Free  — 
their  eyes  bright  with  health  and  energy. 
Free  from  the  lines  of  worry  that  stamp 
the  faces  of  all  those  who  yield  to  the 
demands  of  the  Twin  Idols. 

It  will  be  a  great  day  when  the  leaders 
and  worshipers  of  Fashion  and  the  dev- 
otees of  Pleasure  blow  the  trumpets 


GIRL  WHO   WORSHIPS  TWIN   IDOLS        8 1 

and  cry  aloud,  "  Bow  down,"  and  the 
mass  of  girlhood  and  womanhood,  beauti- 
ful, strong,  healthful,  loving  life,  answer 
and  say,  "  We  will  not  bow  down,  nor 
worship."  When  that  day  comes  —  and 
it  will  come  —  the  reign  of  the  Twin 
Idols  shall  cease. 


VIII 
THE  GIRL  WHO  DRIFTS 


ORE  than  two  years  have  passed 
since  I  met  one  of  the  girls  returning 
from  a  girls'  conference  where  the  depths 
of  her  nature,  unstirred  before  had  been 
touched  and  quickened  into  life.  A  pas- 
sion to  serve  had  been  awakened  in  her 
and  as  she  told  me  of  her  new  visions 
and  desires  I  confess  that  I  feared  for 
her.  Here  she  was,  the  embodiment  of 
all  the  charm  and  power  of  youth  with 
a  soul  on  fire  to  accomplish  great  things, 
and  the  temperament  which  does  not  ac- 
complish great  things.  When  the  train 
stopped  she  was  met  by  her  father,  a 
keen,  common  sense,  average  business 
man  who  often  expressed  the  wish  that 
his  daughter  would  "  get  busy  and  do 
something."  She  went  home  to  a  mother 
large  hearted  and  self-sacrificing,  proud 
of  her  attractive  daughter  and  doing  so 
much  for  her  that  little  remained  for  her 
to  do  for  herself.  On  Sunday  she  went 
to  a  formal,  dignified,  self-satisfied 
82 


THE    GIRL    WHO    DRIFTS 


church;  she  attended  a  Sunday-school 
where  the  teacher  made  the  lesson  in- 
teresting without  requiring  much  from 
the  girls;  she  spent  the  afternoon  with  a 
book,  the  piano,  and  the  relatives  and 
friends  who  came  to  call.  Church,  home, 
friends,  seemed  content  with  her  just  as 
she  was.  She  meant  to  do  so  much  and 
to  some  of  her  friends  she  told  with  great 
enthusiasm  her  plans  for  future  work. 
But  the  days  passed  as  other  days  had 
passed.  What  became  of  her  passion  to 
serve,  to  share  in  the  work  of  making 
life  easier  and  happier?  What  became 
of  the  cry  in  her  heart  for  something  to 
do  to  express  the  new  life  which  had  fired 
her  soul?  They  died.  Slowly  the  fire 
was  quenched  by  inaction,  the  embers 
grew  cold,  the  longings  were  quieted, 
life  went  on  as  before  —  so  easy  it  is  to 
drift. 

She  has  the  sympathy  of  every  one  of 
us,  the  girl  who  "  means  to"  for  we  also 
intend  to  do,  and  fail.  Perhaps  she 
learns  from  our  vocabularies  the  words 
and  phrases  which  so  often  appear  in  her 
own.  "  Tomorrow,"  she  says,  and  "  I 
am  going  to,"  "  I  intend  "  and  "  I  mean 
some  day  to."  She  enjoys  the  present  but 
all  that  she  hopes  to  do  she  puts  into  the 


84 


THE    GIRL    AND    HER    RELIGION 


future.  She  does  not  realize  at  first  that 
the  future  always  has  a  day  of  reckonin; 
and  that  suddenly  when  one  least  expects 
it,  the  future  meets  her  in  the  present  and 
says,  u  How  about  this  and  this  and  this 
which  you  were  going  to  do?  The  time 
is  past.  What  now?"  Sometimes  with 
bitter  tears,  often  with  deep  regret,  al- 
ways in  half  guilty  fashion  the  girl  an- 
swers, "  Well,  I  really  meant  to  do  it, 
only—" 

If  the  drifting  girl  who  "  meant  to  " 
is  to  be  strengthened  in  character  she 
must  be  helped  to  substitute  "  I  have 
done  it "  for  "  I  really  meant  to  do  it." 

The  girl  who  continually  "  means  to  " 
and  seldom  "  does,"  is  usually  emotional, 
responsive,  lovable  and  irresponsible. 
I  remember  a  most  interesting  teacher 
in  the  last  year  of  the  grammar  school 
who  had  just  such  a  girl  in  her  room. 
The  girl  admired  her  teacher  greatly,  and 
whenever  she  expressed  the  desire  to 
read  a  new  book,  to  have  the  class  see  a 
fine  picture,  to  use  certain  material  for 
the  lesson  in  drawing  or  painting,  the 
girl  promised  that  the  book  should  be 
brought,  the  picture  would  gladly  be 
loaned  by  her  father,  the  poppies  or 
tulips  she  would  get  from  her  garden. 


Almost  never  was  the  promise  fulfilled, 
still  she  continued  to  promise.  One 
afternoon  her  teacher  talked  with  her 
after  school  and  showed  her  a  list  of 
twenty-one  things  she  had  promised  to 
do  and  had  not  done.  "  I  know  you  do 
not  mean  to  be  untruthful,  but  you  are," 
the  teacher  told  her.  "  Whenever  you 
promise  now  to  do  a  thing,  the  other  girls 
smile.  You  wanted  to  be  chairman  of 
the  luncheon  committee  the  other  day 
and  did  not  receive  a  single  vote,  not  be- 
cause the  girls  dislike  you,  but  because 
they  cannot  depend  upon  you.  You  al- 
ways intend  to  do  things  but  they  are  not 
done.  You — "  The  girl  interrupted: 

"Twenty-one  promises  to  you, 
broken!"  she  exclaimed.  "Twenty- 
one!  I  shall  keep  every  one  of  them. 
Let  me  see  them."  Then  she  burst  into 
tears  and  the  old  excuse  fell  almost  un- 
consciously from  her  lips,  "  I  meant  to, 
I  really  meant  to." 

Sympathetically,  but  without  being 
spared,  the  girl  was  shown  that  the  prom- 
ises could  not  be  kept  now;  the  time  had 
passed  and  the  things  had  been  done  by 
others.  The  inconvenience  and  unhap- 
piness  caused  by  many  of  these  unkept 
promises  were  explained  to  her  and  the 


86 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


teacher  asked  that  for  one  week  she 
should  make  her  no  promises  and  that  she 
should  not  volunteer  to  do  anything  for 
her. 

"  Oh,  but  I  want  to  do  things  for  you. 
I  must !  "  she  cried  with  all  the  passion  of 
her  emotional  nature. 

"  What  I  want  most/'  the  teacher  re- 
sponded, "  is  that  you  do  things,  but  say 
nothing." 

The  girl  tried  faithfully.  Her  love 
and  admiration  for  the  teacher  fur- 
nished a  strong  motive,  and  the  week 
showed  a  real  gain.  One  day  her  mother 
called  at  the  school.  She  said  that  her 
daughter  had  made  a  strange  request  of 
her.  "  She  asked  me,"  said  the  mother, 
"  to  compel  her  to  do  everything  she 
promised  to  do,  or  said  she  was  going  to 
do  and  to  punish  her  if  she  failed.  I 
asked  her  to  explain  her  strange  request 
and  learned  of  the  struggle  she  has  been 
making.  It  seems  to  me  she  is  too  young 
to  assume  responsibility  to  the  extent  of 
actually  doing  everything  she  just  casu- 
ally says  she  is  willing  to  do  or  intends  to 
do.  We  all  fail  to  carry  out  our  inten- 
tions." 

The  teacher  helped  that  mother  to  see 
that  a  girl  of  fourteen  is  old  enough  to 


THE   GIRL    WHO    DRIFTS  87 

begin  the  struggle  to  establish  the  habit 
of  doing  what  one  means  to  do,  and  she 
realized  her  mistake.  Together  they 
decided  to  encourage  the  girl  to  refrain 
for  the  time  being  from  making  promises. 
Meanwhile  they  made  requests  for  such 
services  as  seemed  perfectly  possible  for 
her  to  render,  being  careful  that  but  little 
time  need  elapse  between  the  request  and 
its  required  fulfilment,  in  order  that  ac- 
tion might  follow  rapidly  the  resolution 
to  act.  In  the  months  that  followed, 
the  girl's  effort  to  do  what  she  said  she 
would  do,  furnished  many  a  scene  of  both 
tragedy  and  comedy,  but  slowly  she 
gained  and  in  two  years  the  result  was 
marvelous.  A  girl  who  because  of  her 
dependableness  will  be  of  great  value  in 
home,  school  and  community  is  being 
made  by  the  sane,  wise  sympathy  of 
mother  and  teacher. 

The  girl  who  drifts  because  she 
"  means  to  "  and  fails,  is  easy  to  love 
and  easy  to  pardon  for  things  left  un- 
done. But  those  interested  in  her  wel- 
fare will  spare  neither  time  nor  thought 
in  the  effort  to  help  her  gain  the  power 
to  make  connection  between  the  intention 
to  do  and  the  actual  doing. 

When  one  observes  carefully  any  large 


88 


THE   GIRL  AND    HER   RELIGION 


cosmopolitan  group  of  young  women, 
she  sees  some  with  hard  faces,  some 
marked  by  suffering,  many  marked  by 
selfishness  and  fretfulness  and  many 
more  showing  dissatisfaction  and  unhap- 
piness,  and  her  mind  goes  back  involuntar- 
ily to  the  fairy  story  with  the  mirror 
which  showed  "  the  girl  you  meant  to 
be."  The  contrast  between  what  many 
a  girl  meant  to  be  and  what  she  is,  re- 
veals a  real  tragedy. 

Many  a  girl  drifts  through  life  always 
meaning  to  do  —  to  be,  yet  missing  the 
joy  of  accomplishment  because  she  does 
not  summon  her  will  to  her  aid,  and 
often  because  friends  are  too  lenient  and 
parents  too  thoughtless  to  make  her  see 
to  what  failure  and  unhappiness,  mean- 
ing to  do  and  never  doing  will  invariably 
lead  one.  If  a  girl  who  some  day 
"  means  to  "  should  read  this  chapter  let 
her  seize  at  once  the  only  life  line  which 
can  ever  save  her.  It  is  made  up  of 
three  short  words  which  are  relentless, 
but  if  she  obeys  they  will  prove  her  sal- 
vation. Do  it  now,  they  read  and  for 
the  girl  who  "  intends  to,"  there  is  no 
other  way  of  escape. 

There  is  another  type  of  girl  who 
drifts.  She  is  explained  by  the  phrase, 


THE    GIRL    WHO    DRIFTS 


m 


"  aimlessly  drifting  about."  She  is  the 
girl  who  does  not  know  where  she  is 
going.  She  has  no  objective.  Often 
parents,  teachers  and  friends  have 
neglected  to  help  her  centralize  her 
thought  upon  one  thing  which  she  de- 
sires to  do  and  she  has  not  seen  for  her- 
self that  while  trying  to  do  everything 
one  accomplishes  nothing.  Many  times 
she  is  a  girl  of  varied  talents  and  puts  all 
her  effort  first  upon  this  thing  then  upon 
that  but  never  works  long  enough  to  com- 
plete anything  or  learn  to  do  it  well.  In 
school  she  changes  her  courses  just  as 
often  as  it  is  permitted,  in  business  she 
changes  her  position  never  remaining  long 
enough  in  any  one  place  to  qualify  for  a 
better.  If  at  home  she  drifts  from  set- 
tlement work  to  domestic  science,  from 
domestic  science  to  a  dancing  club  and 
the  golf  links.  She  gives  herself  to  the 
current  and  the  wind  and  drifts.  She 
needs  an  anchor.  She  needs  the  strong 
will  of  another  to  steady  her  while  she 
is  developing  her  own.  She  needs  a 
great  ideal  to  guide  her  and  hold  her 
with  the  magnetic  power  of  some  North 
Star.  She  needs  to  have  her  ambition 
aroused  and  to  be  made  to  believe  that 
she,  as  truly  as  any  one  in  the  world  has 


9O         THE   GIRL   AND    HER  RELIGION 

a  "  call  to  serve."  She  needs  to  have 
great  things  expected  and  demanded  of 
her. 

The  power  which  rescues  the  drifting 
girl  is  a  power  outside  herself.  It  may 
be  a  call  from  the  bank  of  the  stream 
which  causes  her  to  pick  up  her  oars  and 
leave  the  current,  at  the  call  of  danger, 
in  answer  to  a  cry  for  help;  in  times  of 
sorrow  and  illness,  many  a  drifting  girl 
has  come  ashore  and  rendered  noble 
service.  Those  who  thought  they  knew 
her  looked  on  with  unconcealed  surprise 
and  said  to  one  another,  "  I  didn't  think 
she  had  it  in  her."  Yes,  it  was  in  her. 
There,  undreamed  of  by  those  who 
saw  her  drifting.  The  drifting  girl  has 
within  her  all  the  possibilities.  That  is 
the  pity  of  it.  As  she  drifts  she  may  lose 
oars,  chart  and  compass  and  in  the  stress 
of  the  storm  that  is  bound  to  come  be 
carried  out  into  the  sea  of  darkness,  or 
be  wrecked  upon  the  shoals  or  sand- 
bars that  line  the  stream  of  life. 

A  wise  teacher,  awakened  parents,  a 
good  friend,  a  live  church,  a  great  book, 
these  have  the  opportunity  of  pulling  the 
girl  out  of  the  current,  and  steadying  her 
until  she  fastens  her  life  to  the  Ideal 
which  can  hold  her. 


THE    GIRL    WHO    DRIFTS  gi 

I  can  see  now  the  plain,  dreamy  face 
and  great  black  eyes  of  the  girl  of  whom 
parents  and  relatives  said  as  they  looked 
at  her,  "  What  will  she  ever  amount 
to?"  Their  faces  betrayed  their  own 
conviction  that  she  would  amount  to 
nothing.  She  tried  piano  but  concluded 
that  the  training  necessary  to  make  her 
a  teacher  would  take  too  long  and  took 
up  stenography.  After  a  few  weeks  she 
decided  that  she  was  unfitted  for  the 
work  and  would  rather  be  a  nurse. 
Some  weeks  were  spent  at  home  just 
thinking  about  it,  then  she  began  her 
training.  At  the  end  of  the  period  of 
probation  she  left  —  she  knew  she  could 
never  be  a  nurse.  She  spent  the  days 
reading,  sewing  a  little,  taking  pictures 
in  the  woods  and  along  the  shore  near 
her  home  and  tinting  them.  She  drifted 
through  the  months,  through  a  year. 
One  day  she  posed  a  group  of  children, 
watched  her  chance  and  caught  them  all 
unconscious  and  natural,  interested  in 
their  pails  and  shovels  and  the  tunnel  she 
had  helped  to  dig.  The  mothers  of  the 
children  saw  the  picture.  Beautifully 
tinted  it  seemed  alive  and  they  were  en- 
thusiastic. The  next  week  she  chanced 
to  see  a  nine  year  old  fishing  with  a 


THE   GIRL   AND   HER  RELIGION 

child's  faith.  The  perfect  stillness  of 
the  usually  active  little  body,  the  ex- 
pectant look  on  the  small  face  charmed 
her  and  in  a  moment  her  camera  had 
them.  Every  one  who  saw  the  picture 
exclaimed  at  its  naturalness  and  life  and 
a  friend  who  believed  she  saw  a  future 
for  the  girl  took  it  to  the  best  photog- 
rapher in  the  city.  That  night  the 
photographer's  call  anchored  the  drift- 
ing girl.  He  made  her  feel  that  he  had 
discovered  an  artist  for  which  the  city 
and  many  outside  of  it  had  been  waiting. 
He  fired  her  imagination  and  awakened 
her  ambition.  She  felt  that  she  had  a 
real  mission  in  reproducing  all  the  sweet 
simplicity  and  naturalness  of  the  child. 
She  worked  hard,  the  artistic  tempera- 
ment became  trained  and  both  fame 
and  money  came  to  the  girl  who  would 
probably  still  have  been  drifting  had 
not  some  one  helped  her  find  her 
work. 

To  criticize  the  drifting  girl,  even 
though  she  sorely  tempts  one  to  criticism 
of  her,  is  not  enough.  To  preach  to 
her  on  the  evil  of  drifting  along  with- 
out aim  or  purpose,  just  letting  the  days 
slip  past,  is  not  enough.  The  friends 
of  the  drifting  girl  must  help  her  find 


THE  GIRL   WHO   DRIFTS 


93 


her  work  and  her  mission  and  inspire 
her  with  the  belief  that  she  has  both. 

And  there  are  the  girls  who  drift  be- 
cause strong,  capable,  efficient  mothers 
cannot  conceive  of  them  as  anything  but 
"  little  girls,"  cannot  realize  that  they 
have  grown  up  and  continue  to  plan  for 
them,  to  make  all  their  decisions  and 
choices  as  they  did  when  their  daughters, 
now  twenty,  were  children  of  ten.  This 
sort  of  girl  needs  sympathy  and  help,  for 
in  the  years  when  her  own  powers  should 
be  developing  they  sleep.  Her  mother, 
though  with  the  best  motives  and  inten- 
tions in  the  world,  is  compelling  her  to 
drift  through  the  years  that  should  be 
filled  with  experience  and  effort  and  when 
the  time  comes  that  she  must  be  left  to 
herself  and  depend  upon  her  own  re- 
sources, her  state  is  pitiful.  The  girl 
in  the  later  teens  and  early  twenties  needs 
direction,  advice  and  counsel  but  if  she 
is  to  be  saved  from  drifting  she  must 
learn  to  think  for  herself. 

There  is  another  girl  who  drifts,  not 
aimlessly  about,  but  downstream.  She 
has  lost  her  ideals.  She  has  ignored  the 
still  small  voice  that  tried  to  save  her, 
until  now  it  seldom  speaks.  One  and 
another  of  her  friends  have  been  with  her 


94 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


"I 

mean   to,    I 
11  not  "  I  will 


in  the  current  but  have  left  her  and  made 
their  way  to  safety.  Only  those  from 
whom  at  first  she  shrank  are  with  her 
now.  She  has  reached  the  place  where 
the  current  is  strong  and  rapid  and  es- 
cape is  doubtful.  Her  mother  still  be- 
lieves her  good,  her  father  still  trusts 
her,  but  before  long  they  will  have  to 
know.  She  began  by  saying  not 
meant  to,"  but  "  I  didn't 
didn't  think  it  was  wrong, 
do  it  tomorrow,"  but  "  I  will  never  do 
it  again."  But  she  did  it  again  and  yet 
again.  She  let  go  of  the  help  that  the 
church  offered  and  gave  and  went  to  the 
pleasure  parks  on  Sunday.  She  let  go  of 
a  good  friend  who  held  her  to  the  truth, 
and  made  a  companion  of  the  girl  who 
helped  her  invent  the  things  she  told  her 
mother  when  she  came  home  very  late. 
She  let  go  of  the  good  books  little  by 
little  and  read  the  foolish  stories  that 
were  exciting  and  absolutely  impossible. 
She  let  go  of  the  little  courtesies  and  one 
by  one  of  the  laws  that  good  society  de- 
mands that  its  girls  shall  obey.  She  let 
go  of  modesty  and  in  dress  and  speech 
allowed  herself  to  drift  into  the  current 
where  it  is  swift  and  black. 

If    only    parents    had   watched    more 


THE   GIRL   WHO   DRIFTS 


95 


closely,  if  girl  friends  had  been  stronger, 
and  older  friends  wiser,  it  would  have 
been  so  easy  when  the  current  just 
touched  her  and  she  was  still  near  to 
all  that  is  pure  and  good.  But  she  is 
drifting  —  drifting  more  and  more  rap- 
idly farther  and  farther  downstream. 
Now  and  then  she  looks  back,  remem- 
bers all  the  ideals  she  once  dreamed  to 
reach  and  makes  a  feeble  struggle  to  re- 
sist but  the  current  bears  her  on.  Only 
some  mighty  Power  can  save  her. 

To  the  girl  who  "  means  to,"  and  "  in- 
tends," to  the  girl  who  dreams  and  waits 
and  dreams  again,  to  the  girl  who  has  let 
go  and  is  in  the  current  this  chapter 
throws  out  the  challenge  —  Act,  now. 
You  can!  There  is  help.  Take  it. 


IX 


THE  GIRL  WITH  HIGH  IDEALS 


I 


.DEALS  make  men  and  women  and 
the  process  of  ideal  making  begins  in 
childhood.  A  great  deal  has  been  writ- 
ten and  said  about  the  value  of  the  early 
ideals  born  in  the  home,  but  too  much 
cannot  be  said,  and  the  value  of  the  in- 
fluence of  good  homes  and  parents  whose 
ideals  are  high  cannot  be  overestimated. 
The  girl  whose  home  life  during  the  first 
seven  years  has  not  brought  to  her  the 
high  ideal  must  struggle  all  her  later 
life  to  build  up  and  intrench  in  her  mind 
what  might  have  been  hers  without  con- 
scious effort.  Very  early  in  her  life  the 
little  girl  reveals  in  her  play,  in  her  con- 
versation, in  her  countless  imitative  acts, 
the  ideals  which  are  being  formed. 

One  day  a  little  four  year  old  told  a 
lie  in  my  presence.  Her  mother  look- 
ing the  child  straight  in  the  eyes,  said, 
"Did  Esther  tell  true?"  For  a  mo- 
ment the  child  wavered  then  nodded  her 
head  and  said,  "  Yes,  Esther  tell  true.' 
96 


S"5^'3?P^ 


THE  GIRL    WITH    HIGH    IDEALS 


97 


The  mother  simply  said,  "  Very  well " 
in  the  coldest  of  tones.  After  a  moment 
the  little  girl  turned  to  her  dolls.  She 
took  them  to  a  party,  brought  them 
safely  back  and  carefully  tucked  them 
into  bed.  Then  she  sat  quietly  looking 
at  them.  Finally  she  took  one  from  the 
group,  placed  it  in  the  little  chair,  very 
straight  and  said  "  Look  at  me  1  Did 
'oo  tell  true?  'Oo  didn't  tell  true. 
Naughty  girl."  A  sigh  followed.  Then 
slowly  Esther  came  over  to  her  mother, 
ignoring  my  presence.  Her  lips  quiv- 
ered and  smoothing  her  mother's  hand 
she  said  sadly,  "  Esther  didn't  tell  true. 
Naughty,  naughty  girl."  The  little  girl 
at  four  years  of  age  had  her  ideal  of  a 
good  girl  and  she  acted  according  to  its 
dictation.  She  must  "tell  true."  At 
fourteen  she  is  a  remarkably  ttuthful 
girl  and  very  accurate  in  her  statements. 
Through  fear,  that  mother  as  a  child 
had  become  untruthful  and  in  later  years 
had  a  bitter  struggle  with  the  tempta- 
tion to  sacrifice  the  truth  to  save  herself 
any  annoyance.  She  determined  to  give 
to  her  own  little  daughter  an  ideal  of  the 
beauty  of  truth  which  should  save  her, 
and  she  succeeded. 

Many    a    little    ten-year-old    girl    has 

^Q^^^^^^^r^ 


98 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


fine  ideals  of  truth,  unselfishness  and 
honor  and  they  steady  her  through  the 
teen  years  when  temptations  press  hard. 

The  twelve-year-old  girl  on  the  edge 
of  the  African  jungle  arranges  her  hair 
in  "  mop "  fashion  because  that  head- 
dress represents  her  ideal  of  beauty. 
Rings  in  the  nose,  wonderful  decorations 
of  ankles  and  toes,  represent  ideals  of 
fashion  and  beauty.  The  girl  in  Japan, 
China  or  the  Philippines  thinks  she  has 
made  herself  beautiful  when  she  has  ar- 
rayed herself  in  accordance  with  her 
ideals.  We  often  term  her  "  awful " 
and  "  ridiculous,"  shrinking  even  from 
her  picture  and  she  makes  sarcastic  re- 
marks, laughs  heartily  and  never  fails 
to  express  her  curiosity  regarding  us  and 
our  strange  fancies  and  fashions. 

It  is  our  ideals  which  act  as  a  great 
commander-rn-chief  and  we  follow  in 
obedience  to  their  commands.  Our 
country  needs  today  more  than  ever  be- 
fore, the  girl  with  high  ideals,  for  it  is 
when  ideals  are  lowered  that  character 
is  weakened  and  sin  and  evil  have  their 
opportunity. 

There  are  many  things  in  the  life  and 
surroundings  of  the  girls  of  today  that 
tend  to  lower  and  dim  their  ideals  which 


THE   GIRL    WITH    HIGH    IDEALS 


99 


did  not  enter  at  all  into  the  lives  of  the 
girls  in  our  grandmother's  and  great 
grandmother's  time,  and  the  girls  of  to- 
day must  be  stronger  if  they  are  able  to 
resist  them.  Our  great-grandmothers 
lived  in  the  home  and  did  not  enter  into 
business  life.  It  is  hard  for  the  wide 
awake  business  girl  of  today  to  imagine 
how  that  girl  of  long  ago  managed  to 
enjoy  life.  But  monotonous  as  her  life 
often  was,  she  was  spared  many  things. 
She  never  rode  alone  in  trains  and  trol- 
leys nor  learned  to  jostle  and  push 
through  crowds.  She  was  not  compelled 
to  return  home  late  at  night  without 
proper  escort  as  countless  girls  are  to- 
day. She  never  spent  the  evening  on  the 
streets,  nor  was  she  obliged  to  join  the 
great  army  of  girls  who  today  live  alone 
in  boarding  houses  in  great  cities,  suffer- 
ing from  discomforts  and  desperate  lone- 
liness. Her  parents  were  more  careful 
than  the  majority  of  parents  today  and 
she  knew  what  protection  meant. 

It  is  because  these  things  are  so  that 
one  feels  like  giving  added  praise  to  the 
girls  who  today  are  girls  of  high  ideals, 
who  refuse  to  let  the  carelessness  of  the 
times  in  which  they  live  gain  entrance  to 
their  hearts  to  tarnish  those  ideals. 


ICO       THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

A  short  distance  up  the  shore  as  I 
write  I  can  hear  the  roar  of  the  tide  as 
it  rushes  into  the  very  center  of  a  great 
rock  of  granite.  The  geologist  can  find 
in  that  mass  of  rock  the  tiny  crevice  where 
the  water  first  gained  entrance.  It  has 
split  it  asunder  because  it  was  able  to 
gain  entrance  through  a  little  crack  and 
each  day  sent  in  its  drops  of  water  where 
now  with  that  roar  rushes  the  tide. 
Farther  along  the  shore  is  a  solid  block 
of  granite.  Its  face  is  polished  smooth 
by  the  dashing  waves.  There  is  not  a 
crack  in  it,  not  a  tiny  crevice.  It  pre- 
sents its  splendid,  shining  surface  to  the 
great  sea  but  offers  it  no  opportunity  for 
entrance. 

One  cannot  help  wishing  with  all  his 
soul  that  we  may  have  more  and  more 
girls  who  are  like  that  bit  of  solid  gran- 
ite, strongly  resisting  those  things  that 
seek  a  tiny  crevice  by  which  to  enter. 
For  we  have  so  many  who  through  some 
weak  spot  have  let  the  tide  of  evil  in  and 
slowly  it  has  done  its  work  until  now  the 
once  strong  and  fine  ideals  lie  broken  and 
beaten  by  the  waves. 

The  strong  girls  of  high  ideals  are 
with  us  and  it  is  a  comfort  and  a  joy  to 
look  into  their  young  faces  so  full  of 


,36 


THE   GIRL    WITH    HIGH  ^Ii)E^Li>v 

promise  and  of  courage.  We  find  them 
among  the  very  rich  and  among  the  very 
poor  as  well  as  among  the  girls  who  live 
in  comfort  with  neither  riches  nor  pov- 
N  erty  to  make  things  exceedingly  hard. 

Irene  is  one  of  the  girls  who  amidst 
poverty  and  sin  has  been  able  to  keep  her 
ideals  high.  Her  home  is  poor  because 
her  father,  a  mechanic,  who  can  earn 
good  wages  is  a  hard  drinker.  Her 
mother,  an  honest,  clean,  hard  working 
woman,  is  nervous  and  fretful,  worn  out 
by  the  hard  things  she  has  had  to  meet. 
It  is  a  quarrelsome  household  and  when 
the  father  comes  home  intoxicated  the 
law  is  obliged  often  to  interfere.  One 
of  the  boys  was  expelled  from  school  be- 
cause his  language  is  so  dreadful.  Amid 
this  environment  the  girl  lives.  She 
studies  her  lessons  in  school  and  at  the 
library.  Her  mother  constantly  urges 
her  to  give  up  school  and  go  to  work  but 
an  uncle  who  furnishes  her  meager  sup- 
ply of  dresses,  shoes,  coats  and  hats,  says 
it  would  only  make  her  father  feel  that 
he  could  give  still  less  to  the  family's 
support  and  so  she  continues  to  attend. 
Every  evening  she  helps  her  mother  and 
on  Saturday  works  hard  for  a  neighbor 
with  only  a  pittance  for  pay. 


THS    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


The  school  and  the  Sunday-school 
have  furnished  all  her  ideals  and  she  is 
holding  on  to  them  while  her  father 
taunts  her  with  being  a  "  saint,"  and  the 
girls  of  the  neighborhood  tempt  her  to 
join  with  them  in  the  things  she  knows 
are  wrong.  The  hour  on  Sunday  is  a 
great  help  and  on  Monday  she  loses  her- 
self in  her  lessons  and  enjoys  her  school 
friends.  She  is  only  sixteen  and  she  can- 
not help  hoping  that  things  will  be  bet- 
ter soon.  But  Wednesday  there  is 
another  dreadful  quarrel,  bitter  words 
and  her  father's  drunken  threats.  When 
late  at  night  all  is  quiet  and  she  creeps 
into  bed  beside  her  little  sister,  her  ideals 
seem  far,  far  away,  out  of  her  reach, 
but  she  says,  "  I  must  reach  them,  I  must, 
I  will"  And  so  day  after  day  she  pre- 
sents to  all  the  waves  of  discouragement 
and  evil  the  strong,  granite-like  determi- 
nation that  will  not  let  the  tide  come  in. 

Strong  as  she  is  she  does  not  excel 
another  girl  surrounded  by  extravagant 
wealth,  praised,  flattered  and  pampered, 
trained  to  think  of  one  thing  supremely, 
and  that  herself.  But  she  is  a  girl  of 
high  ideals.  When  a  little  child  her  old 
nurse  told  her  the  stories  and  taught  her 
the  prayers  that  she  never  forgets  and 


THE   GIRL    WITH    HIGH    IDEALS        1 03 

helped  her  feel  a  deep  sympathy  for  all 
who  suffer  and  have  need.  A  fine  young 
uncle  who  has  used  his  wealth  to  comfort 
the  old  and  save  the  sick,  told  her  many 
a  tale  that  stirred  her  soul,  and  her  ad- 
miration for  the  young  man  of  millions 
who  worked  as  hard  every  day  as  any 
man  in  his  office  but  never  for  him- 
self, helped  in  forming  her  own  ideals. 
And  so  she  reads  and  studies,  dreams 
and  plans  the  good  she  will  do  some  day, 
meanwhile  helping  in  every  way  open 
to  her  and  standing  firmly  for  the  things 
she  knows  are  right,  resisting  with  gran- 
ite-like determination  the  onslaught  of 
the  waves  of  self-indulgence  and  the 
tides  of  wild  extravagance  and  display. 

The  girl  of  high  ideals  is  everywhere. 
Every  school  can  claim  her.  Despite 
teasing,  sneers  and  laughter,  she  remains 
true  to  her  ideals.  She  is  not  a  book- 
worm but  she  studies,  she  is  not  prudish 
but  she  is  high  minded  and  pure,  she  has 
fun  but  it  is  wholesome  and  clean  and 
kind. 

She  is  found  in  every  shop,  every  de- 
partment store  is  aware  of  her  presence. 
Honest,  attentive,  true,  interested  in  her 
work,  following  amidst  many  insidious 
temptations  her  own  high  ideals. 


IO4        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

Every  college  knows  her.  She  resists 
the  petty  sins  of  college  life.  She  ban- 
ishes jealousy  and  self-assertion.  Snob- 
bishness she  will  not  tolerate.  She  seeks 
no  honors  save  those  fairly  won.  Keen, 
alert,  pure  and  true,  capable  of  sacrifice 
and  hard  tasks,  sympathetic  with  all 
need,  a  lover  of  true  sport  and  real  fun 
she  represents  the  college  girl  of  high 
ideals. 

Every  factory  has  her  among  its  oper- 
atives. A  good  worker  doing  honest 
work,  refusing  to  allow  the  stain  of  coarse 
jests  to  touch  her,  or  the  temptations 
which  come  with  low  wages  and  great 
fatigue  to  enter  her  life.  Again  and 
again  she  has  revealed  her  ideals  in  mo- 
ments of  disaster  and  death.  It  is  hard 
to  find  words  to  express  one's  admira- 
tion for  the  factory  girl  as  she  holds  to 
her  high  ideals. 

Many  a  kitchen  knows  her.  Neat, 
clean,  honest,  capable,  happy  in  her  work, 
resisting  all  the  temptations  that  come 
through  loneliness  and  deadly  routine, 
she  clings  to  her  ideals  with  courage. 

Every  set  in  society  knows  her;  turn- 
ing her  back  upon  temptations  to  excess, 
vanity,  pride,  scorning  all  forms  of  gos- 
sip, neither  listening  to,  nor  repeating 


THE    GIRL    WITH    HIGH    IDEALS        10$ 

the  words  that  "  they  "  say,  she  keeps  her 
mind  and  heart  fixed  upon  the  undimmed 
ideals  she  has  set  for  herself. 

Many  a  schoolroom  and  office  know 
her,  the  girl  who  does  her  best  work 
though  no  one  sees  and  none  commend, 
refusing  to  lower  her  ideals  in  obedience 
to  subtile  suggestions  or  definite  tempta- 
tions; a  girl  who  does  what  is  expected  of 
her  and  more,  who  puts  her  heart  into 
her  work  and  glorifies  it. 

The  girl,  whatever  her  station  in  life, 
whatever  her  occupation,  who  has  kept 
her  ideals  high  has  the  right  to  be  happy. 
She  can  afford  to  be  light-hearted,  to  en- 
joy fun  and  frolic  and  to  get  the  most 
out  of  everything,  for  she  need  not  spend 
days  in  regret,  nor  wet  her  pillow 
with  tears  of  remorse.  Nothing  in  the 
world  can  make  up  for  the  loss  of  a  pure 
and  high  ideal.  If  girls  could  see  the 
sad  faces  and  know  the  suffering  hearts 
of  the  women  who  in  girlhood  forsook 
their  ideals,  they  would  understand. 

If  a  girl  of  high  ideals  is  thinking 
about  them  now  and  knows  that  she  has 
of  late  been  tempted  to  lower  them  a  lit- 
tle, let  me  ask  her  to  look  at  them  very 
earnestly  before  she  consents  to  tarnish 
them  even  a  little.  Perhaps  it  is  only 


IO6       THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

to  wear  upon  the  street  the  sort  of  dress 
which  attracts  attention  and  causes  re- 
marks to  fall  from  the  lips  of  loafers  as 
she  passes,  perhaps  to  accept  invitations 
from  those  who  do  not  measure  up  to 
the  standard,  perhaps  to  engage  in  a 
dance  in  which  the  ideal  could  not  join,  to 
repeat  gossip  which  is  interesting  but  may 
not  be  true  or  to  be  mean  and  unkind. 
Let  me  beg  of  every  girl  to  cling  with 
all  her  might  to  the  highest  ideal  of  her 
mind  and  heart.  Never  let  it  go.  Pay 
the  cost  of  keeping  it  whatever  that  cost 
may  be. 


X 

THE  AVERAGE  GIRL 

HE  average  girl  does  not  want  to 
be  average.  She  wants  to  stand  for 
something,  to  excel,  to  be  beautiful,  to 
do  great  good  in  the  world,  to  sing,  to 
play,  to  be  a  social  leader,  to  dress  well, 
to  be  very  popular,  to  be  something,  so 
that  people  will  single  her  out  and  say, 
"  That  is  Charlotte  Gray;  she  is  the  pret- 
tiest girl  in  town,"  or  "  That  is  Char- 
lotte Gray;  she  has  a  most  wonderful 
voice,"  or  "  She  is  the  most  popular  girl 
in  the  office,"  or  "  She  is  the  finest  girl 
athlete  in  the  city."  In  her  day  dreams 
she  pictures  herself  the  center,  but  in 
real  life  she  does  not  find  herself  there 
—  she  is  just  plain  Charlotte  Gray. 

The  average  girl  has  all  the  elemental 
powers  of  the  race;  there  are  always  un- 
developed resources  in  her,  always  the 
possibility  that  she  may  bless  the  world 
by  new  ministries,  enrich  it  by  the  dis- 
covery of  the  art  of  living  nobly  amid 
107 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

the  common-place,  that  she  may  be  the 
mother  of  the  great. 

The  average  girl  has  some  handicaps 
and  some  privileges,  in  some  things  she 
is  easily  led,  she  is  often  misunderstood, 
she  has  periods  of  being  indifferent,  she 
spends  too  much  time  following  the  dic- 
tates of  fashion  and  too  much  strength 
endeavoring  to  have  a  good  time,  she 
means  to  do  things  that  never  get  done, 
she  has  times  of  drifting,  she  has  some 
high  ideals  to  which  she  clings  with  more 
or  less  tenacity  —  she  is  a  combination 
girl. 

The  average  girl  is  in  many  ways  the 
most  important  member  of  society,  for 
what  the  average  girl  is,  that  society  is. 
Society  cannot  be  more  generous-hearted, 
pure,  altruistic,  content  and  happy  than 
its  average  girl. 

I  am  thinking  of  two  towns  whose 
inhabitants  number  between  three  and 
four  thousand.  In  one,  the  girls  are 
careless  in  dress,  vulgar  in  speech,  spend 
their  evenings  in  the  two  dance  halls  and 
the  cheap  picture  shows.  While  still 
young  girls  they  marry  men  who  drink 
and  gamble,  start  homes  with  practically 
no  money,  are  poor  cooks  and  house- 
keepers and  know  nothing  about  the  care 


I  vzi 

ft 


THE   AVERAGE   GIRL 


109 


and  training  of  their  children  when  they 
come. 

There  are  beautiful  homes  in  that  town 
and  sweet,  fine  girls  with  the  highest 
ideals.  There  are  wretched  hovels  in 
that  town  with  wicked  and  criminal  in- 
mates. But  neither  the  girl  with  the 
highest  ideals,  nor  the  girl  with  the  low- 
est, can  stamp  that  town;  neither  the 
sweet,  refined,  cultured  girl,  nor  the  im- 
moral and  vicious  one  can  stamp  that 
Vjyj  town.  The  average  girl  determines  the 
character  of  it. 

In  the  other  town  the  girls  impress 
every  stranger  with  their  cleanliness  in 
dress  and  in  speech;  the  streets  are  clean, 
the  homes  are  simple  and  neat.  The 
girls  spend  the  evenings  in  their  own 
homes,  in  "  The  Center,"  a  house  dedi- 
cated by  one  of  the  churches  to  the  young 
people  of  the  town  for  their  enjoyment, 
in  the  one  excellent  moving  picture  es- 
tablishment. They  have  a  debating  so- 
ciety, a  dramatic  club,  and  do  fine  work 
in  the  gymnasium.  They  marry  young 
men  of  simple  tastes  like  themselves, 
start  their  homes  with  at  least  the  ne- 
cessities, they  know  how  to  keep  house 
and  they  make  good  mothers. 

There  are  some  girls  of  culture,  some 


IIO       THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

of  wealth  and  fashion  in  the  town,  but 
they  do  not  stamp  it.  There  are  some 
immoral  and  degenerate  girls  in  that  town 
but  they  do  not  stamp  it.  It  is  the  av- 
erage girl  who  leaves  her  imprint  upon 
it.  Neither  of  these  towns  can  get  away 
from  the  impress  of  the  average  girl. 

The  first  town  has  the  licensed  saloon 
and  the  factory  owners  have  not  the 
breadth  of  mental  vision  to  see  what 
'good  houses,  fair  wages  and  common 
sense  treatment  can  do  to  build  the  char- 
acter of  the  average  girl.  The  second 
town  has  never  had  a  saloon,  the  owners 
of  its  factories  and  business  houses  live 
in  the  town  and  they  have  the  keen  vision 
which  sees  the  value  of  good  houses  in 
which  to  live,  fair  pay,  and  opportunity 
for  real  recreation.  They  have  been 
able  to  raise  the  standard  of  the  average 
girl,  therefore  the  enviable  record  and 
character  of  the  town. 

It  is  the  average  girl  in  college  who 
determines  the  character  and  reputation 
of  that  college.  It  is  not  the  brilliant 
girl,  it  is  not  the  girl  whose  earnest  plod- 
ding barely  carries  her  through,  it  is  not 
the  failure,  it  is  the  average  girl.  If 
the  average  girl  should  leave  her  college 
a  good  athlete,  interested  in  everything 


THE  AVERAGE   GIRL 


III 


athletic,  that  fact  would  determine  the 
general  character  of  the  college.  If  the 
average  girl  leaves  her  college  with 
broadened  sympathies,  good  scholarship, 
intense  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  day, 
real  joy  in  living  and  helping;  these 
things  determine  the  reputation  and  char- 
acter of  the  college.  If  the  average  girl 
leaves  her  college  with  social  ambitions 
and  plunges  into  the  social  whirl,  giving 
her  time  and  strength  to  the  race  for 
social  prominence  and  notoriety,  these 
things  determine  the  character  and  de- 
cide the  reputation  of  that  college. 

The  usefulness  and  character  of  every 
church  is  determined  not  by  the  few  peo- 
ple who  do  all  that  a  church  member 
should  do,  nor  by  the  few  who  utterly 
fail  to  fulfil  the  mission  of  the  church, 
but  by  the  attitude,  work  and  conduct  of 
the  average  member  of  it. 

The  average  girl  in  any  occupation 
determines  its  standing  and  character. 
The  average  girl  in  the  employ  of  any 
concern  determines  not  only  its  value  as 
a  public  servant  but  its  success. 

The  average  girl  holds  the  key  to  all 
situations  touching  the  life  of  girls.  As 
the  average  girl  becomes  more  efficient, 
finer  in  character,  broader  in  thought, 


112        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


more  sound  in  body,  mind  and  spirit,  she 
raises  society  with  her;  as  she  loses  in 
efficiency,  in  power  of  thought  and  in 
character,  grows  weaker  in  body,  mind 
and  spirit,  she  drags  society  down  with 
her. 

What  should  she  be  like,  this  all-im- 
portant average  girl?  What  is  she  in 
the  ideal?  I  have  asked  scores  of  girls 
the  question  and  the  following  paragraph 
is  their  answer  as  well  as  my  own. 

The  ideal  average  girl  is  strong  in 
body,  is  intelligent,  believes  in  God  and 
strives  to  obey  His  laws.  She  is  not 
afraid  to  work  and  she  has  courage  to 
meet  hardships  and  loneliness  if  they 
come.  She  is  interested  in  pretty  clothes, 
she  wants  them  for  herself,  she  has  what 
she  can  honestly  afford  and  she  spends 
time  and  takes  pains  to  get  the  very  best 
she  can  for  the  money  she  has.  She  re- 
fuses to  be  extreme  in  style  or  to  make 
herself  ridiculous  or  conspicuous.  She 
likes  fun,  she  enjoys  amusements  and 
good  times.  She  will  not  indulge  in 
things  of  which  her  parents  heartily  dis- 
approve or  which  unfit  her  for  work  or 
study,  and  which  her  own  conscience  tells 
her  are  doubtful.  She  loves  friends  and 
companions  and  has  as  many  as  she  can. 


THE   AVERAGE   GIRL. 


She  chooses  carefully  her  friends  among 
the  boys  and  men  and  lets  neither  word 
nor  act  lower  in  the  least  degree  their 
respect  for  her.  She  looks  forward  to 
the  day  when  she  shall  have  a  home  of 
her  own  and  fits  herself  to  care  for  it 
with  intelligence  and  skill.  She  is  hon- 
est, and  faithful  to  the  present  tasks. 
She  is  kindly,  generous,  helpful,  cheer- 
ful, just  the  sort  of  girl  one  would  like 
to  live  with  every  day. 

It  is  a  high  average,  yes,  it  is  ideal. 
But  the  fact  that  so  many  girls  are  seek- 
ing that  ideal,  that  so  many  against  fear- 
ful odds  are  pressing  toward  it,  and  that 
so  many  little  by  little  are  achieving  it 
fills  one  with  hope.  The  fact  that  so 
many  men  and  women  who  but  a  few 
years  ago  were  not  concerned  with  either 
the  needs  or  rights  of  a  girl  are  bending 
every  energy  to  the  task  of  setting  her 
free  from  the  things  that  burden  her, 
hold  her  back  and  make  her  suffer,  fills 
one  with  anticipation,  for  the  things  which 
touch  the  average  girl  are  the  things 
which  concern  all  who  have  great  hopes 
and  dreams  for  the  future  of  our  land. 

This  chapter  and  all  the  chapters  pre- 
ceding are  an  appeal  to  the  average  girl 
and  those  who  love  her  to  summon  all 


114        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

their  strength  and  raise  the  standard 
of  the  average. 

Let  the  average  girl  be  the  highest 
possible  average,  realizing  the  important 
place  she  holds  in  the  working  out  of  all 
problems  of  right,  justice  and  public  wel- 
fare and  knowing  that  God  must  have 
had  great  faith  in  the  power  and  possi- 
bility of  the  average  girl  else  He  would 
not  have  trusted  so  much  to  her  keep- 
ing. 

The  world  is  grateful  for  the  brilliant 
girl,  for  the  gifted,  the  talented,  the 
beautiful;  but  without  the  average  girl 
it  could  not  live.  God  bless  her  and 
give  us  more  and  better. 


r"2^^§2fc*5?&i 


m< 


PART  II 

Her  Religion 


XI 


THE  GIRL  AND  THE  UNIVERSE 


Wi 


HEN  Wonder  suggests  its  first 
questions  to  her  they  are  large  questions. 
They  have  to  do  with  the  Universe. 
They  are  eternal  and  unanswerable 
questions.  They  fall  from  baby  lips  but 
they  baffle  sages.  It  may  be  on  some 
bright  summer  morning  that  she  stands 
amidst  the  daisies  scarcely  taller  than 
they,  listening  intently  to  the  words  of 
wisdom  which  tell  her  that  God  made 
the  daisies  every  one,  and  all  the  flowers 
and  the  butterflies  and  the  cows  in  the 
meadows.  After  a  time  of  silence  she 
puts  her  question,  her  clear  eyes  search- 
ing the  face  of  her  would-be  teacher. 
"  Who  made  God?  "  she  asks,  and  while 
the  teacher  wavers  she  repeats  her  ques- 
tion until  some  sort  of  answer  comes. 
That  night  when  she  is  tucked  into  bed 
her  mind  returns  by  way  of  her  evening 
prayer,  to  the  subject  of  the  morning. 
She  hurls  another  question.  "  Where 
117 


Il8        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


is  God?"  Since  she  cannot  be  evaded 
she  is  so  often  told  that  God  is  every- 
where and  accepting  it  with  all  the  faith 
of  the  literalist  she  begins  her  search  for 
Him.  She  strives  to  solve  the  mysteri- 
ous fact  that  He  can  be  everywhere  and 
yet  in  all  the  places  where  one  searches 
He  is  not  to  be  found. 

Then  her  grandmother  who  sat  in  the 
sunny  room  upstairs  as  long  as  the  little 
girl  can  remember  is  taken  sick.  Some 
days  pass  and  her  mother  with  tears 
streaming  down  her  face  tells  her  little 
daughter  that  grandmother  has  gone  to 
heaven.  The  mystery  bearing  down  up- 
on the  little  soul  deepens.  "  What  is 
Heaven?"  and  "where  is  Heaven?" 
she  asks.  They  tell  her  of  its  beauties, 
its  peace,  happiness  and  joy.  They  say 
that  grandmother  wanted  to  go  and  then 
they  cry  again.  The  little  girl  cannot 
understand  it  all,  but  she  tries.  If 
grandmother  is  happy  and  really  wanted 
to  go,  why  does  mother  look  so  sad, 
why  the  closed  blinds,  why  is  everything 
so  quiet?  She  asks  the  question  in  the 
presence  of  her  practical  unimaginative 
aunt,  who  bids  her  be  quiet  and  adds  in 
her  even,  impressive  voice,  "  Your  grand- 
mother is  dead."  The  word  has  an  aw- 


09 


THE    GIRL    AND    THE    UNIVERSE        IIQ 

ful  sound  and  she  raises  her  eyes  to  the 
severe  face  above  her  and  asks,  "  What 
is  dead?"  But  the  aunt  does  not  an- 
swer, and  the  little  girl  goes  to  the  win- 
dow to  think  it  all  over.  She  knows 
that  dead  is  dreadful  —  grandmother 
has  gone,  the  house  is  quiet,  father  will 
not  play  with  her  and  mother  cries.  She 
is  only  a  very  little  girl  but  she  has  met 
the  unanswerable  questions,  "  Who  made 
God?  Where  did  I  come  from? 
Where  is  Heaven?  What  is  it  like? 
What  is  Death  ?" 

As  the  years  pass  her  instructors  in 
religion  attempt  to  teach  her.  In  varied 
words,  according  to  varied  creeds  they 
answer  or  postpone  the  answer  to  her 
questions.  She  learns  that  God  is  good 
and  God  is  great;  that  He  takes  care  of 
people,  at  night  especially;  that  one  may 
ask  Him  for  whatever  she  wants  and  if 
it  is  best  she  will  get  it;  that  if  one  would 
please  God  she  must  be  very  good  and 
there  are  many  things  she  must  not  do; 
that  those  who  please  Him  shall  be  re- 
warded and  those  who  fail  shall  be  pun- 
ished. 

Her  instructors  do  not  mean  always 
that  this  shall  be  the  sum  total  of  their 
teachings  but  stripped  of  all  the  songs, 


120        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


the  pictures  and  cards,  the  birthday  greet- 
ings, the  flowers  and  stories,  these  things 
in  the  majority  of  cases  sum  up  the  little 
girl's  conclusions.  There  enters  into  her 
religion  in  many  cases  that  name  which 
seems  so  often  to  sound  sweeter  when 
murmured  by  baby  lips  than  at  any  other 
time.  The  little  girl  has  learned  to  love 
the  Baby  asleep  in  the  hay,  the  Child  be- 
fore whom  the  Magi  knelt,  the  obedient 
and  lovable  boy  who  played  in  Nazareth. 
Then  the  new  outlook  comes  and  the  lit- 
tle girl  sees  Jesus  the  Redeemer  and  God 
the  Father.  She  listens  with  eager  fas- 
cinated interest  to  the  stories  of  what  He 
did  and  said,  tries  to  obey  the  commands 
He  gave,  suffers  for  her  sins  of  commis- 
sion, prays  and  hopes  to  be  forgiven. 
The  One  who  searches  the  hearts  of  men 
must  find  as  honest,  devoted  faith  among 
these  little  girls  as  anywhere  in  His  army 
of  believing  followers. 

Then  the  spirit  of  altruism  begins  to 
awaken.  She  is  no  longer  a  little  girl. 
She  begins  to  understand  the  meaning  of 
sacrifice,  she  is  stirred  with  the  desire  to 
serve.  Christ  the  Messiah,  the  Savior 
and  Master,  claims  her  interest  and  her 
heart  is  filled  with  desire  to  serve  and  to 
prove  her  love  to  Him.  She  pledges 


THE   GIRL   AND   THE   UNIVERSE        121 

herself  to  His  service,  strives  to  be  faith- 
ful, suffers  agonies  of  remorse  over  her 
failures.  Among  all  the  hosts  who  fol- 
low Him  there  are  none  more  loyal  and 
loving  than  this  girl  in  her  teens. 

The  years  pass  and  in  the  later  teens 
and  early  twenties  another  world  forces 
itself  upon  the  girl.  It  is  the  world  of 
sin  and  evil,  of  selfishness,  greed  and 
hypocrisy.  She  shrinks  from  it  but  it  is 
bound  to  be  revealed.  She  catches  a 
glimpse  of  a  world  of  suffering  and  pain 
that  makes  her  heart  ache.  And  while 
these  worlds  are  pressing  hard  she  is 
plunging  into  the  secrets  of  things.  The 
revelation  of  biology,  astronomy,  chem- 
istry, the  history  of  peoples,  languages 
and  books,  the  science  of  economics,  and 
the  mysteries  of  psychology  are  demand- 
ing consideration.  Something  happens 
to  the  bright,  sweet  unquestioned  faith. 
Questions  persist,  doubts  suggest  them- 
selves and  demand  answer.  Nature  asks 
"  What  do  you  think  about  me?  "  The 
problems  of  sin  and  sickness,  accident 
and  injustice  ask  "  How  do  you  explain 
us?  "  and  darkness  settles  over  the  girl's 
spirit.  Sometimes  she  refuses  to  think 
things  out  and  accepts  the  new  explana- 
tions of  things  whatever  they  happen  to 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


a: 


be,  turning  in  cynicism  from  the  old. 
But  more  often  she  does  think  —  ask- 
ing the  old  questions  she  faced  as  a  little 
girl  all  over  again  out  of  a  larger  world 
and  a  trained  mind.  "  Who  made  God? 
—  what  was  the  very  beginning  of  be- 
ginnings? "  she  asks.  "  Is  it  some  one  or 
some  thing?"  "  What  is  Death  and 
what  is  after  that?  How  am  I  to 
know? "  Soul,  mind  and  spirit  cry  out 
for  concrete  proof  of  that  which  can  never 
be  concretely  proven. 

The  thing  she  needs  just  here,  is  the 
very  thing  she  is  most  often  denied. 
She  needs  some  one  who  can  show  to  her 
the  larger  God  and  the  greater  Christ 
for  her  larger  world  and  greater  thought. 
She  is  losing  or  has  lost  her  smaller 
conceptions  in  the  maze  of  wonders 
which  have  been  revealed  to  mind  and 
heart.  She  needs  to  know  that  she  has 
not  lost  her  God,  rather  is  she  just  be- 
ginning to  discover  Him ;  that  she  has  not 
lost  her  Christ,  instead  the  Christ  is  just 
beginning  to  be  revealed  to  her  in  all 
His  greatness.  She  needs  some  one  to 
make  clear  to  her  the  meaning  of  the 
promise,  "  Seek  and  ye  shall  find. 
Knock  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you." 
From  a  new  view-point  with  a  larger 


THE   GIRL   AND   THE   UNIVERSE        123 

vr&\ 
horizon  she  may  be  helped  to  begin  her 

trustful   search    for   God   knowing  that 
truth  can  never  lead  away  from  God.  Aj 
She  is  just  a  girl  but  the  Universe  is  hers   Q 
in  which  to  seek  Him.     Its  laws,  as  fast 
as  she  can  discover  them,  are  her  servants 
to  lead  her  to  Him  and  its  broadening     IL. 
horizons  but  bring  her  nearer. 

When  she  can  face  all  the  new  knowl- 
edge, feel  the  shaking  of  the  old  founda- 
tions, in  this  spirit  of  trustful  discovery, 
her  doubts  will  pass  away.  The  world 
is  saved  through  Christ,  not  through 
dogma  and  if  she  can  have  the  wise  in- 
structor or  friend  who  can  show  her  these 
things  she  is  safe. 

Whenever  one  thinks  of  the  little  girl 
among  the  daisies  there  comes  to  him 
in  woful  contrast  the  little  girl  in  the  C^J 
crowded  cities'  wretched  streets.  She  is 
denied  the  daisy  field.  Stars  do  not 
tempt  her  to  wonder.  The  narrow 
streets  filled  with  material  things,  press- 
ing close,  crowd  out  sun  and  moon.  The 
name  of  God  is  familiar  to  her  ears  but 
she  does  not  ask  questions  about  Him. 
She  associates  the  name  with  loud  voices, 
angry  faces  and  often  with  blows. 
Death  awakens  wonder  but  there  is  little 
time  for  answers  to  puzzled  questionings. 


,  M 


124        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

The  few  days  of  relief  from  noise,  the 
expressions  of  sympathy  and  friendship, 
the  unusual  words  of  tenderness  all  make 
a  deep  impression  —  then  life  goes  on  as 
before  only  harder  because  of  the  added 
expense.  As  the  years  pass  she  accepts 
the  teachings  of  her  church,  she  can  re- 
cite them  more  or  less  glibly  but  they 
have  nothing  special  to  do  with  her  life. 
Philosophy  and  science  do  not  trouble 
her.  She  says  her  prayers  thinking  about 
other  things  and  when  she  grows  older 
stops  saying  them,  save  at  church. 

Oftentimes  as  a  little  girl  she  receives 
no  religious  instruction,  never  enters  a 
church  and  the  name  of  God  drops  in 
curses  from  her  own  lips.  Only  now  and 
then  fear  of  the  future  takes  possession 
of  her  for  a  moment.  Only  in  great 
stress  of  unusual  suffering  or  pain,  or  in 
the  presence  of  awful  sorrow  is  her  soul 
stirred  to  ask  the  little  girl's  question, 
"What  is  Heaven  like?" 

Sometimes  the  bitterness  of  her  lot 
causes  her  to  treat  the  idea  of  God  with 
scorn.  "  Look  at  me,"  she  said  one  day 
in  my  presence.  "  What  have  I  done 
that  God  should  punish  me  with  the  trou- 
bles I've  got.  There  ain't  no  God,  that's 
what  I  say,  anyways." 


THE   GIRL   AND   THE   UNIVERSE        125 

Poor  girl!     The  church  must  give  to  / 
her  the  God  whom  she  can  trust  and  love,  / 
but  it  will  have  to  give  Him  in  wide- 
spread,  simple  justice.     First  she  must 
see  Him  in  deeds  and  then  in  words. 

The  girl  amidst  the  squalor  of 
wretched  conditions  in  heartless  cities, 
needs  a  God  who  is  her  defender  and 
champion  as  well  as  her  Savior.  When 
some  wise  instructor  or  inspired  friend 
can  give  to  her  this  view  of  the  Lord 
God  of  Hosts,  the  Father  of  all,  who 
seeks  through  His  children  to  save  His 
children  her  salvation  has  begun. 

Oftentimes  one  meets  the  gentle,  trust- 
ful, lovable  little  girl  who  asks  her  ques- 
tion and  receiving  the  answer  accepts  it, 
never  to  doubt  it  through  all  the  years, 
never  to  ask  the  great  universal  ques- 
tions again.  Sometimes  it  is  because  the 
answers  were  so  wisely  given,  sometimes 
because  the  depths  of  the  giiTs  mental 
and  spiritual  life  are  never  touched. 
She  has  a  comfortable  faith,  earnest, 
true,  honest  and  sincere.  It  does  not 
embrace  the  world,  nor  is  it  deeply  con- 
cerned with  the  great  problems  with 
which  the  world  wrestles.  It  is  not  nec- 
essary perhaps  that  it  should  be.  The 
girl  is  naturally  religious,  trustful  and 


126       THE    GIRL  AND    HER  RELIGION 

believing.  Her  sweet,  untroubled  faith 
blesses  the  life  of  every  day. 

Those  who  are  interested  in  the  re- 
ligion of  girlhood  and  young  womanhood 
are  filled  with  hope  today  as  they  listen 
to  the  answers  which  are  being  given  by 
wise  mothers  and  teachers,  to  the  great 
questions  of  the  universe.  The  answers 
leave  room  for  a  growing  religion  which 
grows  as  the  girl  grows. 

A  while  ago  my  friend  walked  through 
the  country  fields  with  a  little  six  year 
old.  My  friend  says  she  has  left  behind 
an  "  outgrown  religion."  Her  compla- 
cence and  cynicism  received  a  shock  that 
afternoon.  A  lamb  which  was  the  baby 
of  the  flock  had  been  made  a  special  pet 
by  the  children  and  came  immediately 
when  the  six  year  old  called.  The  days 
were  getting  cold  and  the  lamb's  woolly 
coat  was  thick.  My  friend,  intending  to 
instruct  the  child  said,  "  Put  your  hand 
on  the  Iambic's  thick  wool.  Cold  days 
are  coming  and  Nature  makes  the  lamb's 
wool  nice  and  warm." 

"  Yes,"  answered  the  child,  her  eyes 
shining,  "  the  Heavenly  Father  makes 
its  coat  warm.  He  didn't  give  them  a 
papa  like  mine  to  get  their  clothes.  He 
gives  them  to  them  himself." 


THE   GIRL   AND    THE    UNIVERSE        I2/ 


c# 

>/x 


My  friend  was  surprised  by  the  words 
and  before  she  could  think  of  a  suitable 
reply,  the  child  continued  — 

"  He  tells  the  birdies  to  go  down  where 
it's  warm  and  there  are  flowers  all  the 
time.  Just  a  few  stay  here  when  it's 
cold  and  they  have  warm  feathers.  The 
bear  and  the  foxes  and  the  horsie  and 
kitty, —  the  Heavenly  Father  makes  all 
their  coats  warm.  He  is  very,  very 
busy,"  she  added  impressively. 

For  weeks  during  the  preparations 
which  nature  makes  for  the  coming  win- 
ter, my  friend,  hitherto  satisfied  with 
abstract  law  found  her  mind  going  back 
to  the  Heavenly  Father  "  very,  very 
busy  "  in  the  great  world  He  had  made. 
She  was  so  impressed  that  she  went  with 
the  child  to  her  kindergarten  class  in 
school  and  in  Sunday-school  and  in  both 
she  heard  of  the  love  and  care  of  the 
Heavenly  Father. 

As  she  listened  to  the  simple  teach- 
ings, the  children's  answers  and  com- 
ments, she  realized  that  in  the  circle  there 
was  a  very  real  personality  called  the 
Heavenly  Father  whom  these  children 
knew  and  loved.  "  I  wish  such  had  been 
my  training,"  she  said  regretfully. 
"  Perhaps  I  should  have  been  saved  the 


128        THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 

darkness  and  perplexity  in  which  I  have 
lived  for  years. " 

Months  after  in  a  large  class  of  ear- 
nest, eager  and  attentive  girls  I  listened 
to  a  wonderful  teacher.  I  loved  with  a 
deeper  love,  after  that  lesson,  the  Christ 
whose  presence  seemed  to  fill  that  room 
as  the  teacher  showed  her  girls  the  Mas- 
ter at  His  task  of  saving  the  world  by 
showing  it  God,  the  Father. 

One  day  I  stood  in  a  silent  home  with 
a  brilliant,  cultured  girl,  who  had  trav- 
eled much  and  enjoyed  every  privilege. 
She  had  that  afternoon  left  her  mother 
beside  her  father  out  on  the  sloping  hill- 
side in  the  great  silent  city.  We  raised 
the  curtains  the  maid  had  drawn,  the  girl 
laid  aside  her  coat  and  hat  and  said  sadly, 
"  Now  life  must  begin  again,  without  all 
that  is  dearest  to  me."  I  tried  to  find 
words  to  strengthen  her  but  she  turned 
her  calm  face  toward  me  and  said, 
"  How  do  people  live  through  it  and  go 
on,  who  haven't  God?  The  Father  of 
the  World  has  them  both  in  His  keeping. 
I  can  wait  till  I  find  them  again. " 

This  girl  had  never  doubted.  She  had 
wondered  and  thought,  questioned  and 
believed.  Wise  parents  had  given  to  her 
the  God  of  the  Universe  —  the  Father, 


THE    GIRL   AND    THE    UNIVERSE        I2Q 

and  His  Son  the  revelation  of  Himself 
to  men  that  it  might  be  saved,  in  such 
simple  terms,  so  free  from  petty  dogma 
that  as  she  had  grown  in  mind  and  spirit 
He  grew  in  wonder  and  majesty  and 
power,  commanding  her  love  and  wor- 
ship. 

If  a  girl,  troubled  and  perplexed  by 
the  things  the  mind  cannot  grasp  or 
heart  understand,  chances  to  read  this 
chapter  let  her  know  that  the  trouble  lies 
not  with  the  God  of  whom  she  has  been 
taught  but  with  those  who,  trying  to  do 
their  best,  have  been  weak  in  their  teach- 
ing. 

If  we  can  banish  from  our  faith  all  its 
man  made  littleness,  all  its  chaos  of  bick- 
erings, all  the  fret  of  the  conflicting 
opinions  of  those  who,  after  all,  are  them- 
selves but  children  searching  after  truth, 
and  give  to  the  growing  girl,  a  growing 
religion,  the  God  of  the  Universe  will  be- 
come her  God  and  she  will  worship  him 
in  sincerity  and  truth  all  the  days  of  her 
life. 

"  Dear  Lord  and  Father  of  mankind, 
Forgive  our  feverish  ways; 
Reclothe  us  in  our  rightful  mind, 
In  purer  lives  thy  service  find, 
In  deeper  reverence,  praise." 


XII 
IN  THE  HANDS  OF  A  TRIAD 


D, 


'ESPITE  all  the  words  that  have 
been  written  and  spoken  in  the  past  it  is 
still  true  that  many  of  those  engaged 
in  the  religious  training  of  a  girl,  or  re- 
sponsible for  the  form  of  religion  which 
is  presented  to  her,  do  not  realize,  or  else 
they  ignore  the  fact  that  she  is  in  the 
hands  of  a  triad  —  body,  mind  and  spirit. 
As  a  triad  she  develops  if  she  be  a  normal 
girl,  as  a  triad  she  acts.  Her  character 
is  made  by  these  three  agencies  working 
together.  It  is  a  fact,  the  significance  of 
which  none  of  us  fully  realize,  as  yet, 
that  a  clean  mind  and  a  clean  heart  in  an 
unclean  body  is  very  rare.  A  quick,  alert 
balanced  mind  and  a  pure,  heroic  spirit 
in  a  starved  and  diseased  body  is  also 
rare.  A  well-nourished,  well-cared-for 
body  with  all  its  functions  doing  their 
work  and  a  mental  weakling  is  a  rare 
combination. 

Once  we  did  not  know  that  adenoids 
made  children  mentally  deficient,  nor  did 
130 


IN    THE    HANDS    OF   A    TRIAD 


we  dream  that  teeth  properly  attended 
to,  and  a  pair  of  glasses  could  transform 
a  girl  from  a  sullen,  morose  disobedient 
child  into  an  interesting,  happy  and 
obedient  one;  but  some  of  us  have  seen 
that  transformation  and  marveled  at  it. 
Once  we  believed  that  inherent  moral  de- 
generacy sent  a  twelve-year-old  girl  to 
the  courts.  Now  we  are  beginning  to  see 
the  relationship  between  a  room  with  no 
windows  and  no  running  water,  a  dirty 
alley  or  a  wretched  street  and  the  moral 
degeneracy.  Once  we  shook  our  heads 
^  and  sard,  "  Well,  they  say  there's  one 
black  sheep  in  every  family."  Now  we 
are  beginning  to  see  that  the  black  sheep 
may  be  made  by  the  gratification  of  every 
physical  desire  and  every  mental  whim 
and  the  neglect  of  the  spirit. 

Churches,  schools  and  individuals  are 
beginning  at  last  to  seriously  consider  the 
teaching  of  morals  and  religion  and  as 
they  give  themselves  to  the  task  of  lay- 
ing down  practical  workable  plans,  sud- 
denly as  if  it  were  a  new  revelation  comes 
the  fact  that  the  individual  is  a  triad  and 
she  must  be  taught  as  such. 

If  homes  were  ideal  it  would  be  an 
easy  task.  If  it  were  possible  for  the 
majority  of  homes  to  approach  the  ideal 


132       THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


it  would  seem  an  easier  task.  But  with 
poverty,  ignorance,  inefficiency  and  indif- 
ference clutching  at  the  very  center  of 
dynamic  power,  the  task  is  one  of  the 
greatest  which  men  have  as  yet  been  asked 
to  meet.  If  homes  were  ideal,  from  the 
moment  the  little  girl  comes  into  the 
world,  and  even  before  her  coming,  sen- 
sible, rational  care  would  be  taken  of  her 
body,  not  only  to  make  it  beautiful  but 
that  it  might  do  its  work  for  her  in 
healthful,  normal  fashion  and  be  a  good 
servant  throughout  her  life.  Her  mind 
would  be  awakened  and  trained  to  think, 
her  will  to  act  and  to  control  and  all  her 
sense  of  reverence,  wonder  and  worship 
developed  while  her  love  for  the  good 
and  the  beautiful,  the  heroic  and  self-sac- 
rificing was  stimulated. 

But  homes  are  not  ideal  and  the  ma- 
jority have  neither  accepted  nor  consid- 
ered deeply  the  task  of  preparing  the 
whole  girl  for  life.  Some  prepare  her 
physically  and  let  the  rest  of  the  triad 
develop  as  it  will.  Some  prepare  her 
mentally  and  morally  while  both  body 
and  spirit  suffer.  Some  seek  to  prepare 
her  spiritually  by  fitting  on  as  a  sort  of 
garment  what  they  believe  to  be  religion 
while  body  and  mind  receive  little  atten- 


IN    THE    HANDS    OF   A    TRIAD 


133 


tion  and  some  let  all  three  develop  as 
convenience  and  chance  may  dictate. 

When  men's  consciences  have  been 
awakened  and  they  find  the  home  incap- 
able or  inert,  they  have  turned  the  respon- 
sibility over  to  the  public  school  and  the 
church.  Of  late  civic  forces  have  given 
their  aid.  Those  directly  interested  in 
the  religious  training  of  the  girl  are  com- 
ing to  agree  that  these  three  agencies  are 
needed  and  that  they  must  work  together 
if  the  whole  girl  is  to  be  helped. 

Some  one  must  teach  a  girl  the  things 
about  herself  that  she  ought  to  know. 
That  some  one  is  her  mother.  No  one 
else  can  do  it  with  the  same  power. 
Neither  church  nor  school  can  perform 
well  the  delicate  task  of  revealing  life's 
secrets,  and  blundering  is  deadly.  But 
church  and  school  and  civic  forces  to- 
gether can  help  the  mother,  can  give  her 
a  proper  conception  of  her  duty,  give  her 
the  words  to  say,  perhaps.  The  school 
can  teach  morals  and  keep  its  own  moral 
standards  high;  the  church  can  awaken 
the  spiritual  life  of  a  girl  and  nurture 
it,  that  knowledge  and  high  ideals  may 
work  together  to  fortify  and  strengthen 
her.  The  civic  forces  can  see  to  it  that 
the  girl  has  the  opportunity  for  pure 


134        THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 

physical  enjoyment,  for  mental  stimula- 
tion and  moral  uplift. 

What  civic  forces  have  been  able  to 
do  through  tuberculosis  exhibitions  and 
child  welfare  exhibits,  by  showing  parents 
the  truth  regarding  the  importance  of  the 
physical  care  of  their  girls,  furnishes  en- 
couragement to  go  further.  Good  news- 
papers may  speak  to  parents  untouched 
by  the  school  and  out  of  touch  with  the 
church  and  have  done  so.  The  majority 
of  parents  when  they  see  and  believe  will 
act. 

There  was  a  time,  and  not  long  since, 
when  those  engaged  in  teaching  religion 
were  not  concerned  with  the  number  of 
hours  the  girl  worked,  the  age  at  which 
she  began,  the  sort  of  room  in  which  she 
slept,  the  amount  of  real  food  she  had. 
And  because  they  were  not  concerned  they 
lost  her.  Today  a  teacher  cannot  teach 
religion  if  she  does  not  care  about  life. 
She  attempts  it  but  she  fails.  Jesus 
astonished  the  Scribes,  Pharisees,  Doctors 
of  the  Law  and  Priests  of  the  Temple  by 
His  intense  interest  in  the  physical  needs 
of  men.  He  took  into  account  the  whole 
man  and  set  body,  mind  and  spirit  free. 

When  one  considers  how  little  mental 
stimulus  and  training  comes  to  the  aver- 


IN    THE    HANDS    OF   A    TRIAD 


135 


age  girl  after  leaving  school  and  is  aware 
of  the  vast  majority  who  leave  school 
at  any  early  age,  she  is  not  surprised  at 
the  lack  of  power  to  think  on  the  part 
of  so  many,  and  at  the  very  limited  knowl- 
edge she  finds  when  attempting  to  teach. 
The  girls  of  today  need  to  be  informed 
on  matters  of  public  welfare  and  political 
and  economic  affairs  as  never  before. 
Where  shall  they  go  for  that  information 
and  how  shall  they  be  led  to  desire  it? 
Girls  need  to  know  the  meaning  of  re- 
ligion and  in  simple  fashion  the  history 
of  creeds  and  denominations.  They  need 
instruction  from  the  Bible  which  cannot 
be  given  in  a  half  hour  a  week  of  more  or 
less  regular  study. 

Once  those  who  were  teachers  of  re- 
ligion were  not  deeply  concerned  with 
what  the  girl  read  and  the  things  about 
which  she  thought.  Now  one  cannot 
teach  religion  truly  unless  she  knows 
what  a  girl  reads,  about  what  she  talks 
and  thinks,  whether  she  is  in  touch  in 
any  way  writh  that  which  can  broaden 
her  mind  and  give  her  food  for  thought. 

No  girl  is  safe,  no  girl  can  be  her  best 
or  get  the  most  out  of  life  who  is  weak 
on  the  third  side  of  the  triad.  Unless 
she  has  the  help  of  a  well  developed 


136        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

spiritual  nature  how  the  littlenesses,  the 
routine,  the  difficulties,  the  jealousies  and 
envyings,  the  gossiping  and  petty  dishon- 
esties of  life  dwarf  her. 

Long  ago,  when  I  first  began  to  print 
pictures,  I  tried  to  print  a  picture  of  a 
beautiful  rail-boat  against  long  lines  of 
sand  dunes,  on  a  postal  card.  I  couldn't. 
They  explained  to  me  that  I  must  have 
sensitized  cards,  then  the  imprint  could 
be  made.  The  girls  of  today  need  to  be 
developed  and  sensitized  spiritually  that 
the  imprint  of  purity  and  righteousness 
may  be  made  upon  the  whole  life.  The 
spiritual  life,  as  well  as  the  mental  and 
physical,  is  as  we  shall  see  in  a  later  chap- 
ter, a  matter  of  cultivation. 

If  the  girl  herself  reads  this  chapter 
she  will  stop  a  moment  to  examine  the 
triad  which  makes  up  her  own  life.  Per- 
haps the  physical  side  is  weak.  She  may 
strengthen  it  if  she  will.  Now  is  the 
time,  while  she  is  young  and  it  will  obey 
her.  When  habit  has  written  its  words 
in  iron  on  muscle,  heart  and  nerves  it  will 
be  harder  for  her  to  control  it.  Perhaps 
she  has  been  careless  about  fresh  air,  per- 
haps has  been  tempted  to  let  pie  and  cake 
and  coffee  make  a  lunch,  perhaps  to 
neglect  rubbers,  to  get  only  half  the  sleep 


IN   THE   HANDS   OF   A   TRIAD 


137 


she  needs  or  to  dress  foolishly  on  cold 
winter  days.  If  the  physical  side  of  the 
triad  is  weak  a  girl  must  suffer.  The 
body  is  a  despotic  master  and  it  is  a 
splendid  servant.  Even  if  others  have 
failed  to  help  her  and  circumstances  have 
been  against  her,  a  girl  can  if  she  will, 
improve  her  physical  condition  and  every 
little  improvement  is  worth  the  cost.  It 
may  not  seem  to  her  at  first  a  part  of  her 
religion  to  keep  her  body  well  and  to 
strengthen  it  by  every  means  in  her 
power,  but  it  is. 

It  may  be  that  the  mental  side  is  weak; 
that  it  is  lazy  and  does  not  want  to  think; 
that  the  only  food  it  craves  is  the  sen- 
sational, and  light,  very  light  reading  and 
not  much  of  that.  But  the  girl  who  is  in 
earnest  can  refuse  to  gossip  and  learn  to 
talk  and  think  about  the  great  needs  and 
problems  of  our  day.  She  can  turn 
quickly  the  pages  where  crime  and  acci- 
dents are  recorded  and  read  carefully 
those  that  tell  of  the  progress  in  science 
and  the  happenings  among  the  nations 
of  the  world.  She  can  read  a  great 
book  once  a  month  or  once  in  three 
months  according  to  the  time  she  has  and 
she  can  think  and  talk  about  what  she 
reads.  She  can  find  some  hobby  in  which 


VL 

^ 


II 
OR 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 

to  be  interested.  The  effort  she  makes 
to  compel  her  mind  to  work  will  bring  a 
very  real  reward. 

It  is  a  pitiful  thing  to  see  a  woman  at 
thirty  or  forty  who  has  nothing  to  think 
about  but  herself  and  the  affairs  of  her 
neighbors,  and  who  never  reads.  If  the 
mental  side  of  the  triad  has  grown  weak 
through  laziness  and  neglect,  the  girl 
may  strengthen  it.  The  effort  to  make 
it  strong  may  not  seem  a  part  of  religion 
but  it  is. 

And  if  she  knows  now  as  she  thinks 
honestly  about  it,  that  the  spiritual  side 
of  the  triad  that  governs  her  life  is  weak, 
she  may  strengthen  it.  She  can  read  the 
Book  that  through  all  the  ages  has 
strengthened  men's  spirits  and  made  them 
conquerors  over  temptation  and  sin. 
She  can  think  about  the  words  that  have 
helped  women  to  keep  sweet  and  strong 
amidst  trial,  and  danger,  sorrow  and  dis- 
appointment. And  she  can  pray.  She 
does  not  need  long  prayers.  She  needs 
just  a  word  with  God,  her  Father  and  her 
Helper  every  day  to  keep  her  strong,  and 
another  at  night  to  give  her  courage  to 
go  on  trying  when  she  has  weakly  yielded 
to  temptation  and  failed.  If  she  has 
neglected  it  she  may  begin  now  to 


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A    TRIAD          139 

strengthen  the  weak  place  that  she  may 
be  saved  from  spiritual  sickness  which  is 
the  worst  of  all. 

One  covets  for  every  girl  the  op- 
portunity to  live  in  the  hands  of  the 
healthful,  trained,  awakened  triad.  Life 
is  a  blessed  experience  to  the  girl  who  is 
well  physically,  alert  mentally  and  strong 
spiritually.  If  that  experience  is  to  come 
to  the  majority  of  girls,  then  those  in- 
terested in  her  religion  must  more  and 
more  understand  that  true  religion 
touches  all  of  life  —  the  triad  —  body, 
mind  and  spirit. 

One  summer  night  when  the  thunder 
was  roaring  over  the  sea  and  vivid  flashes 
of  lightning  blinded  for  the  moment  one 
daring  enough  to  face  the  storm,  the  lit- 
tle village  church  bell  rang  the  dread 
alarm  of  fire.  The  apparatus  for  fire- 
fighting  was  of  the  type  most  city  people 
have  forgotten.  Men  rushed  to  the  fire 
company's  quarters  and  dragged  the  en- 
gine forth.  From  one  of  the  highest 
hilltops  flames  lighted  the  sky.  The 
men  seizing  the  rope  dragged  the  ap- 
paratus up  the  steep  slope.  Just  before 
reaching  the  top  it  stuck.  Suddenly  a 
sharp  appealing  voice  rang  out  into  the 
darkness.  It  did  more  than  request,  it 


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I4O        THE    GIRL   AND    HER  RELIGION 

commanded  and  demanded.  u  Every- 
body take  hold  "  it  shouted,  and  under 
the  power  of  it  people  sprang  to  obey 
and  the  engine  reached  the  hilltop. 

Those  who  look  with  sympathy  and 
love  at  girlhood  today,  cannot  help 
wishing  that  some  Voice  of  power  would 
ring  out  through  every  place  where  girls 
are  found  saying  — "  Everybody  take 
hold!  "  If  everybody  would  respond  to 
the  task  as  that  night  in  the  fire  and  the 
storm,  the  girl,  in  body,  mind  and  spirit 
might  easily  be  saved.  Everybody  may 
not  respond  now — "but  how  about  you, 
the  girl  herself? 


XIII 


THOU  SHALT  NOT 


I 


N  our  effort  to  get  away  from  the  harsh 
negative  teaching  of  the  past  which  made 
young  people  feel  that  life  meant 
"  don't,"  we  have  made  the  mistake  of 
failing  to  teach  with  power  the  fact  that 
there  are  things  to  which  God's  law  and 
man's  law  say  thou  shah  not.  "  I  did 
not  know  it  would  do  any  harm,"  is 
oftentimes  a  truthful  statement  and  the 
girl  has  the  right  to  be  carefully,  wisely 
and  sanely  taught  the  things  to  which  she 
must  say  no.  A  girl's  religion  must  have 
not  only  the  constraining  power  which 
sends  her  out  to  do  the  kindly  deed,  say 
the  word  of  comfort  and  cheer,  give  of 
her  time  and  her  talent  to  help  make  life 
easier  for  those  who  find  it  hard,  but  it 
must  have  the  restraining  power  which 
shall  keep  her  from  self-indulgence  and 
sin. 

Whenever  the  thou  shall  not  side  of 
religion  is  mentioned  the  girls  themselves 


fy 

i 

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KUfS 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


and  those  responsible  for  their  training 
immediately  think  of  the  question  of 
amusements,  which  is  after  all  only  a  part 
of  the  greater  question  of  how  much 
leisure  a  girl  should  have  and  what  she 
should  do  with  it.  Preachers,  teachers 
and  Christians  generally,  differ  so  widely 
on  the  matter  of  disputed  amusement 
questions  that  thou  shall  not  loses  its 
force.  It  is  the  parents'  right  to  decide 
the  girl's  amusements  and  determine  her 
social  life  and  when  one  sees  the  length 
to  which  parents  permit  and  even  en- 
courage their  daughters  to  go,  he  knows 
that  the  thou  shalt  not  might  well  be  said 
to  them.  When  parents  do  not  care  what 
their  girls  do,  or  are  too  careless  and 
ignorant  to  realize  danger,  when  the  girls 
are  without  friends  and  unprotected,  then 
the  teacher  of  religion  must  without  hesi- 
tation, forcefully  and  with  the  arguments 
of  fact,  teach  them  to  say  "  no  "  to  the 
things  which  she  believes  can  bring  only 
harm,  which  weaken;  the  power  to  resist 
other  evils  and  which  are  unhealthy  for 
the  growing  girl.  One  may  teach  with 
feeling  and  power  the  "  thou  shalt  not " 
in  which  she  believes  without  uttering 
bitter  words  of  condemnation  of  those 
who  differ  with  her. 


1 


M 


THOU    SHALT    NOT 


143 


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xw< 


Religion  and  the  law  together  have  the 
right  to  say  to  the  unprotected  girl,  lack- 
ing wisdom,  without  discretion,  eager  for 
fun  and  adventure,  ignorant  of  danger, 
thou  shall  not.  The  words  should  be 
written  over  every  unchaperoned  or  in- 
adequately chaperoned  high  school  dance, 
over  the  public  dance  hall,  over  the  cab- 
aret, over  the  vaudeville  where  the  vulgar 
hides  behind  a  mask,  over  every  place 
which  by  its  very  nature  opens  doors 
of  temptation  and  lowers  powers  of  re- 
sistance. The  teachers  of  religion,  and 
all  agencies  for  moral  training  and  up- 
lift, because  of  the  comparative  help- 
lessness of  girlhood,  have  the  right  to 
teach  by  every  means  at  their  command 
thou  shall  not. 

Some  one  must  teach  the  growing  girl 
that  extravagance  is  sin;  some  one  must 
say  thou  shall  not  to  her  common  faults 
of  promising  without  thought  of  the  cost 
of  keeping  the  promise,  of  exaggeration 
and  untruthfulness.  Some  one  must  help 
her  see  the  utter  folly  of  snobbishness  and 
false  pride.  In  some  way  she  must  be 
taught  the  cruelty  and  meanness  of  gos- 
sip, the  results  of  a  sharp  tongue  and 
a  critical  spirit  She  must  be  shown  the 
sin  of  ingratitude  and  the  curse  of  jeal- 


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144        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

ousy  and  envy.  In  fact  the  old  ten  com- 
mandments are  needed  by  the  girlhood 
of  today  as  truly  as  they  were  needed 
by  that  great  army  of  people  in  the  days 
of  the  youth  of  a  race,  when  their  great 
law  giver  and  leader  strove  to  save  them 
from  the  results  of  their  own  ignorance 
and  newly  acquired  liberty. 

Who  teaches  thou  shall  not  to  the  girl 
of  today?  Indirectly,  a  great  many 
people.  Directly,  clearly,  definitely  so 
that  she  understands  and  is  impressed, 
very  few.  The  Sunday-school  in  a  half- 
hour  a  week  attempts  to  do  it,  but  the 
Sunday-school  reaches  a  very  small  part 
of  the  girlhood  of  our  land,  and  its  work 
with  those  whom  it  has  reached  is  often 
ineffective.  It  is  at  present  engaged  in 
a  serious  effort  to  make  its  teachings 
more  effective  and  far  reaching.  The 
public  school  is  not  directly  teaching  the 
thou  shalt  not,  for  teaching  it  does  not 
mean  saying  it,  in  the  form  of  a  command. 
It  does  much  indirect  moral  teaching, 
which  is  invaluable.  It  is  experimenting 
with  direct  moral  teaching  and  many  of 
the  experiments  have  shown  highly  grat- 
ifying results,  which  lead  us  to  hope  that 
the  day  is  not  far  distant  when  direct 
teaching  of  the  common  laws  of  moral 


THOU    SHALT    NOT 

living  shall  find  a  place  in  every  school. 
We  shall  have  to  find  some  new  definition 
first,  for  such  words  as  success,  wealth, 
honesty,  courage,  honor  and  the  long  list 
in  the  vocabularies  which  the  pupils  in 
every  school  make  for  themselves. 

In  reacting  against  the  thundering 
negatives  of  the  past,  the  church  has,  in 
the  decade  or  more  that  lies  behind  us, 
been  teaching  an  unbalanced  religion. 
"Thou  shalt,"  and  "  thou  shalt  not" 
must  be  taught  together  if  the  best  re- 
sults are  to  be  reached.  In  individual 
instances  so  great  success  has  been  won 
by  the  teacher  of  religion  that  his  method 
is  worth  one's  earnest  study. 

One  morning  there  came  into  Sunday- 
school  class  a  very  ordinary  looking  little 
girl  of  ten  years.  Her  father  was  a 
truck  driver,  her  mother  had  been  a  do- 
mestic. There  were  four  children  in  the 
home,  the  little  girl  being  next  to  the 
youngest.  The  parents  had  no  relation 
to  any  church.  The  two  older  children 
had  turned  out  great  disappointments  to 
them  and  when  a  neighbor  invited  the 
ten-year-old  to  go  to  Sunday-school  the 
mother  gave  her  consent,  saying  that  per- 
haps the  church  could  keep  her  from  fol- 
lowing her  brother  and  sister.  It  did. 


146        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

In  that  home  there  was  no  moral  in- 
struction, no  moral  suasion.  When  the 
children  had  told  a  lie  directly  to  the 
mother  they  were  punished  severely. 
When  they  told  a  lie  to  a  teacher  or 
neighbor  the  mother  was  their  defender 
and  they  escaped  punishment.  They 
heard  their  mother  lie  to  her  husband, 
to  her  neighbors,  to  the  rent  collector 
and  the  grocer.  They  learned  not  to 
fear  a  lie  but  to  fear  being  discovered  in 
it.  They  became  clever  liars  and  the  lit- 
tle girl  at  ten  was  an  adept.  For  dis- 
obedience, cheating,  taking  food  and 
pennies  they  were  alternately  turned 
over  to  their  father  for  punishment  or 
shielded  from  his  wrath  according  to  the 
mother's  temper  at  the  time  of  the  of- 
fense. They  were  not  taught  or  helped 
to  hate  sin  or  to  see  it  in  its  hideous 
aspect.  Thou  shall  not  was  a  matter  of 
convenience,  not  of  principle. 

The  teacher  into  whose  class  the  little 
girl  came  was  a  woman  of  experience 
who  before  her  marriage  had  been  a 
teacher  in  the  public  school.  She  called 
in  the  home,  she  learned  the  standing  of 
the  girl  in  the  day  school,  in  less  than  a 
month  she  knew  her.  What  she  found 
out  made  her  determine  to  help  the  child 


0) 


hate  falsehood  and  cheating  in  every 
form.  By  story  and  incidents  she 
showed  Sunday  after  Sunday,  side  by  side, 
the  cowardice  and  unhappiness  of  the 
liar,  the  distrust  of  his  fellowmen,  the 
misery  which  he  must  suffer  and  the  cour- 
age, happiness  and  freedom  of  the  truth- 
loving  and  truth-telling  child.  Every 
lesson  said  "  don't  lie  "  and  "  speak  and 
act  the  truth."  One  day  the  little  girl 
was  invited  to  her  teacher's  home  to  look 
at  pictures  and  choose  some  books  to 
read,  for  the  teacher  had  discovered  her 
love  for  pictures  and  books.  After  a  very 
happy  hour,  while  saying  good-by  in  the 
hall,  the  child  suddenly  seized  her  teach- 
er's hand  and  stammered,  "  How  can  you 
help  telling  lies?"  The  teacher  says, 
"  As  I  looked  into  her  plain  little  face 
with  its  quivering  lips,  I  loved  her.  I 
determined  to  fight  for  her  and  with 
her."  It  was  a  fight,  for  habit  was 
strong  and  environment  did  not  change. 
For  over  five  years  that  teacher  faithfully 
presented  the  "  thou  shall  not "  and 
"  thou  shalt "  which  shaped  the  girl's 
ideals  and  helped  her  reach  them.  She 
taught  her  to  pray;  she  inspired  her  with 
a  genuine  love  for  God  the  Helper,  who 
would  "  see  her  through,"  she  opened 


148 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 


doors  of  service  for  her.  At  twenty 
she  is  a  truthful  and  truth-loving  girl,  she 
has  been  able  to  say  "  no  "  to  the  things 
which  proved  the  downfall  of  brother  and 
sister;  she  is  a  useful,  self-supporting, 
thoroughly  respectable  member  of  society 
and  an  earnest  Christian.  She  has  been 
able  to  lead  her  younger  brother  safely 
past  the  dangerous  places  and  is  helping 
him  through  school.  What  the  church, 
through  its  religious  instruction,  has  been 
able  to  do  for  this  girl  and  many  others 
it  might  do  in  far  larger  measure  were  it 
equipped  with  a  regular  teaching  force 
,  adequate  to  its  need,  if  its  preachers 
could  come  into  real  contact  with  the  chil- 
dren and  youth  of  the  community  and 
present  to  them  with  power  the  thou  shah 
not  which  shall  give  them  at  least  an 
opportunity  to  strive  to  obey. 

If  the  girl  herself  is  reading  this  chap- 
ter I  know  she  will  agree  with  me  when 
I  say  that  a  girl  respects  and  honers^n 
her  heart  the  teacher  who  presents  to  her, 
fearlessly  and  honestly,  the  things  which 
she  believes  a  girl  cannot  do  with  safety, 
which  lead  into  dangerous  places  and 
which  make  it  hard  for  her  to  keep  pure, 
true,  unselfish  in  thought  and  deed;  and 
she  respects  even  more  highly  the  teacher 


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who  can  give  her  broad  sane  reasons  for 
finding  substitutes  for  these  things.  She 
may,  as  she  grows  older,  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  her  teacher  was  mistaken  but 
she  respects  her  for  her  honest  effort  to 
help. 

In  every  girl's  creed  there  must  be 
some  negative.  The  law  says  you  must 
and  you  must  not.  As  she  reads  this 
page  perhaps  some  girl  will  stop  for  a 
moment  and  write  out  the  things  to  which 
she  believes  a  girl  should  say  "  no." 
Here  is  such  a  list,  written  in  the  form  of 
a  creed  by  a  girl  when  a  sophomore  at 
college. 

"  I  believe  that  a  girl  should  not  in- 
dulge in  amusements  which  make  her 
nervous  and  excited,  give  her  a  headache, 
make  it  hard  for  her  to  study,  cost  her 
a  good  deal  of  money  and  crowd  out  all 
thoughts  of  duty  and  which  make  her 
feel  envious  and  jealous  of  those  who  are 
more  popular  or  fortunate  than  she,  and 
sometimes  make  her  think  things  she 
hates  to  remember. 

I  believe  that  a  girl  should  never  re- 
peat what  she  has  heard  about  another 
person  if  it  could  in  any  way  injure  that 
person's  character. 

I  believe  that  she  should  not  lie  even 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 

by  looks  or  by  silence.  I  believe  that 
she  should  never  deceive  another,  never 
make  fun  of  the  weaknesses  or  misfor- 
tunes of  other  people  and  never  treat  an- 
other girl  as  she  would  not  herself  want 
to  be  treated." 

This  is  a  negative  creed.  It  does  not 
say  do,  it  says  don't,  but  there  are  times 
when  every  girl  needs  Don't.  Put  don't 
into  your  own  creed,  you  girls  who  are 
thinking  over  these  things. 

When  you  are  tempted  to  lose  your 
head  and  plunge  into  things  you  have 
been  taught  are  wrong,  just  because 
"  everybody'9  that  mysterious  mischief 
maker,  is  doing  these  things,  keep  steady 
and  Don't. 

When  you  are  tempted  to  make  things 
more  comfortable,  more  interesting, 
more  exciting  by  exaggeration  —  Don't. 

When  you  are  tempted  to  escape  by  a 
lie  the  consequences  of  what  you  have 
said  or  done  —  Don't. 

When  you  are  tempted  to  let  envy  or 
jealousy  find  expression  in  words  or  acts 
of  meanness  and  unkindness  —  Don't. 

When  you  are  tempted  to  repeat  a 
story  or  say  a  daring  thing  you  would  not 
say  in  the  presence  of  the  one  whose  re- 
spect you  desire  —  Don't. 


a 


THOU    SHALT    NOT 


i 

m 


When  you  are  tired  of  the  struggle  to 
be  true  and  do  right,  tired  of  the  effort 
to  seek  always  the  best  things  and  are 
tempted  to  give  up  —  Don't. 

When  you  are  tempted  to  repay  in- 
justice with  revenge,  unkindness  with 
cruelty,  jealousy  with  malice,  to  do  to 
others  as  they  do  to  you  —  Don't. 

Learn  the  power  of  control,  of  re- 
straint and  though  it  be  only  the  negative 
side  of  religion,  it  will  help  to  make  you 
strong. 

When  the  instructor  in  religion  opens 
his  eyes  and  sees  the  peril  which  lies  in 
wait  for  the  girl  wage  earner,  the  society 
girl  and  even  the  schoolgirl,  what  he  is 
forced  to  see  makes  him  say  with  a  pas- 
sionate cry  from  his  soul,  as  he  thinks 
of  the  individual  girls  whom  he  knows 
and  loves,  "  Thou  shah  not." 


3K 


A 


XIV 
THOU  SHALT 


THOUGHT  which  slumbers  in 
the  mind  has  within  it  the  germ  of  life. 
At  any  moment  when  the  right  stimuli 
have  been  given,  it  may  spring  into  con- 
scious being  and  find  expression  in  ac- 
tion that  will  color  the  entire  life. 
While  it  slumbers  today,  tomorrow  may 
bring  the  waking  moment  and  so  it  must 
be  reckoned  with  in  the  formation  of 
character.  Still  it  lacks  the  positive  ele- 
ment. It  is  limited. 

It  becomes  the  work  of  those  inter- 
ested in  the  welfare  of  the  girl  to  cause 
the  awakening  and  constant  stimulation 
of  those  thoughts  which  shall  lead  to  ac- 
tion along  right  lines.  The  repeated  im- 
pression upon  the  mind  of  deeds  of  hero- 
ism, of  unselfish  daily  living,  of  great  ac- 
tion on  the  part  of  ordinary  people  in  a 
common-place  environment  has  an  un- 
mistakable effect  upon  the  forming  char- 
acter. 

But  if  the  thoughts  engendered  by  the 
152 


THOU    SHALT 

deeds  of  heroism  and  achievement  be 
called  into  action  by  the  opportunity  in 
the  girl's  life  to  reproduce  them,  then  the 
effect  upon  the  character  is  made  definite 
and  intense.  It  is  not  until  the  girl  has 
done  a  kindred  thing,  until  the  impression 
has  found  its  way  out  in  action,  that  the 
full  result  upon  the  forming  character 
is  seen.  All  the  complex  life  about  her 
is  busy  through  the  eye  and  ear,  through 
numberless  sensations  and  instinctive  re- 
actions leaving  impressions.  Their  im- 
print upon  her  life  may  be  seen  by  any 
close  observer  when  the  girl  herself  is 
unconscious  of  it.  But  it  is  the  special 
set  of  impressions  which  habitually  find 
expression  that  determine  character. 

This  is  most  encouraging,  for  it  means 
that  if  the  girl  can  be  lead  to  express  the 
right  impression  and  leave  the  others  to 
fade  away  into  the  recesses  of  conscious- 
ness where  it  will  be  hard  to  awaken 
them,  the  determination  of  her  character 
will  be  a  possible  task.  It  means  that  in 
the  years  of  habit  formation  and  char^ 
acter  making  those  who  share  the  task 
of  the  girl's  training  have  the  opportunity 
to  lead  her  to  repeatedly  express  in 
positive  action  the  high  ideal,  the  noble 
self-sacrifice,  the  great  deed  or  ambition, 


M 

ra 


154       THE    GIRL  AND    HER   RELIGION 

the  generous  impulse  slumbering  in  her 
thoughts  and  appearing  in  her  day 
dreams.  The  material  which  is  fur- 
nished her  for  thought  creates  her  day 
dreams,  what  she  sees  in  her  day  dream 
effects  character,  what  she  does  makes 
it. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  parents  and 
teachers  who  are  seriously  concerned 
with  the  problem  of  making  a  girPs  re- 
ligion a  real  and  vital  thing  seek  ways 
and  means  by  which  she  may  be  led  to 
express  both  in  words  and  actions  the 
thoughts  and  desires  which  their  teach- 
ing has  awakened. 

A  successful  teacher  had  been  study- 
ing with  her  class  for  some  weeks  the 
lessons  founded  upon  "  Unto  the  least  of 
these,  my  brethren  " — "  A  cup  of  cold 
water  even,"  "  Ye  have  done  it  unto  me," 
and  kindred  texts.  She  taught  well  and 
the  girls  were  thinking.  Some  attempted 
as  individuals  to  express  what  they 
thought.  In  the  minds  of  most,  the 
stories,  illustrations  and  facts  slumbered. 
One  Saturday  three  of  the  more  thought- 
less girls  were  asked  to  accompany  the 
teacher  on  a  visit  to  a  children's  hospital. 
They  were  much  impressed  by  what  they 
saw.  The  convalescent  ward  proved 


HER    HEART    IS    FILLED    WITH    A    DEEP    DESIRE 
TO    SERVE 


1 


THOU    SHALT  155 

great  interest  and  the  babies  fighting  for 
their  lives  against  pneumonia  brought 
tears  to  their  eyes.  On  their  way  home 
they  expressed  the  wish  that  the  class 
might  make  some  of  the  bonnets  and 
gowns  which  the  sweet-faced  young  nurse 
had  said  the  hospital  needed  so  much  for 
its  baby  patients.  "  Perhaps  the  other 
girls  will  not  be  interested,"  said  the 
teacher.  Immediately  the  most  thought- 
less girl  in  the  class  replied,  "  Oh,  Miss 

D ,  they  cannot  help  it.     We  will  tell 

them  what  we  saw!  We  have  been 
studying  long  enough  about  what  we 
ought  to  do.  We  haven't  done  a  thing! 
At  least  —  I  haven't — "  she  added. 

Two  dozen  bonnets  and  gowns,  well 
made  after  the  pattern  furnished  by  the 
hospital,  were  the  result  of  the  interest 
of  that  class.  While  the  girls  sewed 
they  talked.  They  discussed  in  simple 
girlish  fashion  the  problems  of  poverty 
and  illness  and  the  duty  of  one  part  of 
society  to  the  other.  In  this  sort  of  in- 
formal discussion  they  expressed  them- 
selves far  more  freely  than  in  their  Sun- 
day-school class  or  their  classroom  at 
school.  By  the  expression  of  high  and 
generous  thoughts  they  strengthened  their 
own  ideals  and  placed  themselves  in  the 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

presence  of  their  friends  and  companions 
on  the  side  of  Christ-like  living. 

About  a  week  after  the  last  bonnet  and 
gown  made  by  the  class  had  been  sent  to 
the  hospital  the  teacher  was  surprised 
by  a  visit  from  Arline,  a  heedless  and 
hitherto  disinterested  member  of  the 
class.  It  was  a  bitter  cold  day,  the  sun- 
less air  penetrating  even  the  warmest 
garments. 

"  I  brought  you  this  box  of  things  to 
give  away,"  the  girl  said  as  the  teacher 
tried  to  conceal  her  surprise.  "  There 
must  be  a  good  many  babies  in  the  river 
district  who  need  warmer  clothing  these 
cold  days.  I  had  some  time  for  sewing 
and  my  aunts  helped." 

The  teacher  found  three  bonnets  and 
gowns  carefully  made,  three  tiny  flannel 
petticoats,  six  pairs  of  warm  stockings 
and  three  small  hot  water  bottles. 

"  I  bought  the  things  with  my  own 
money,"  said  the  girl.  "  It  is  the  first 
time  I  ever  did  anything  like  this.  I  en- 
joyed it." 

The  church  visitor  found  a  needy  place 
for  each  thing  and  told  Arline  most 
heartily  how  grateful  she  was  for  the 
help  she  had  been  able  to  pass  on.  The 
simple  deed  by  which  Arline  expressed 


m 


THOU    SHALT 


157 


in  the  positive  terms  of  action  what  she 
had  been  thinking  seemed  to  make  a  def- 
inite change  in  her  character  and  about 
three  months  from  the  time  she  had 
made  her  gift,-  in  a  simple  and  natural 
way  she  came  into  the  church.  As  the 
girls  were  given  more  and  more  definite 
opportunity  to  express  themselves  in 
thoughtful  acts  and  kindly  words,  the 
teacher  found  sympathetic,  interested  lis- 
teners to  the  lessons  she  tried  to  make  in- 
spiring and  practical  in  their  appeal,  and 
one  by  one  the  girls  decided  for  them- 
selves to  come  into  the  church  and  help 
it  do  its  work  in  the  world.  The  definite 
stand  of  such  a  group  of  interesting  girls, 
easily  leaders  in  school  and  the  social  life, 
made  a  decided  difference  in  the  stand- 
ards of  the  young  people  of  that  com- 
munity. The  community  as  a  whole, 
and  the  parents  of  the  girls  especially, 
owe  to  that  teacher  a  very  real  debt  for 
her  part  in  the  character  building  of  those 
girls,  who  before  they  came  in  contact 
with  her  had  had  only  vague  and  hazy 
ideas  of  a  girl's  duties  and  privileges. 
She  furnished  them  with  material  for 
thought  and  with  opportunity  for  trans- 
lating that  thought  into  action  which  is 
rapidly  determining  their  characters. 


158        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

A  class  of  girls  in  another  community 
made  up  of  "  freshmen  "  and  "  sopho- 
mores "  in  the  high  school  who  were 
accused  by  other  girls,  and  with  reason, 
of  being  "  snobbish,"  "  proud,"  and  of 
forming  "  cliques,"  had  been  studying 
with  a  most  interesting  teacher  a  course 
on  Christian  life  and  conduct.  They  had 
been  urged  to  show  in  their  own  lives,  in 
school,  in  their  social  relations,  the  char- 
acteristics they  learned  each  Sunday 
should  belong,  not  only  to  every  Chris- 
tian but  to  every  girl.  Then  their 
teacher  began  to  make  the  suggestions 
definite,  getting  as  many  as  she  could 
from  the  girls  themselves.  They  were 
asked  to  increase  the  membership  of 
their  club,  attend  and  take  part  in  young 
peoples'  socials  from  which  their  "  set  " 
had  held  aloof,  join  in  the  work  of  the 
Girls'  Guild,  to  which  they  had  given  a  lit- 
tle money  but  nothing  else.  These  things 
were  hard  for  some  of  them.  At  first 
they  were  not  able  to  do  them  naturally 
and  easily  and  they  found  the  friendship 
and  confidence  of  the  other  girls  hard  to 
gain.  But  they  had  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion in  class  that  these  things  were  right 
and  the  enthusiasm  and  approval  of 
their  teacher  over  the  attempts  they  were 


THOU   SHALT 


159 


fn 

8 

V 


making  spurred  them  on.  Then  they 
began  to  make  discoveries.  They  found 
out  what  interesting  girls  there  were  out- 
side their  "  set."  They  found  they 
had  exaggerated  their  own  importance. 
They  began  to  enjoy  the  good  times  of 
the  young  people  in  the  church  societies 
and  to  want  a  real  part  in  them.  The 
change  in  the  spirit  and  life  of  that  class, 
even  in  a  year,  was  wonderful.  At  the 
end  of  the  second  year  with  that  teacher 
the  spirit  of  the  young  people  in 
that  cosmopolitan  church  had  entirely 
changed.  Those  girls  had  wrought  the 
change  because  they  had  themselves  been 
transformed.  They  had  been  expressing, 
day  after  day,  in  positive  action  the  things 
they  learned,  and  the  impressions  which 
before  had  slumbered  in  the  mind  burst 
into  life  through  the  daily  deed.  They 
studied  Christ's  rules  for  living,  they 
traced  the  results  of  obedience  to  those 
rules  in  the  lives  of  those  who  truly  fol- 
lowed Him  and  they  tried  to  do  in  their 
own  every  day  lives,  until  doing  brought 
power  to  do  and  character  was  being 
made. 

In  the  religion  of  every  girl  there  must 
be  the  positive  side;  whether  she  works 
in  a  factory  or  attends  a  fashionable 


l6o        THE    GIRL   AND    HER    RELIGION 

boarding  school  her  character  will  be 
made  and  her  religious  life  formed 
through  the  impressions  which  constantly 
find  expression  in  words  and  actions. 

A  girl's  religion,  especially  in  the  early 
teens,  must  be  active  not  passive.  She 
must  be  made  to  feel  —  and  be  given  the 
right  outlet  for  the  feelings  aroused 
within  her,  to  dream  —  and  be  helped 
to  find  a  way  to  work  out  her  dreams. 
She  must  be  given  knowledge  and  be 
shown  the  way  In  which  to  use  It. 

It  is  in  this  way  that  the  girl,  every 
girl,  may  hope  to  find  a  sane  and  natural 
religion  which  shall  be  a  real  help  in  the 
real  world  where  she  must  live.  Christ 
was  a  doer  of  deeds.  The  gospel  rec- 
ord of  His  life  has  somewhat  to  say  of 
the  things  He  did  not  do  but  its  pages 
are  filled  with  the  things  that  He  did. 
Lame,  blind,  lepers,  insane,  poor,  lonely 
and  sorrowful  as  well  as  "  sinners,"  His 
friends  and  His  disciples  bear  witness 
to  the  things  that  He  did.  Christianity 
is  a  religion  of  deeds  and  whether  it  be 
through  a  factory-club,  a  neighborhood 
house,  Camp  Fire  Girls,  Christian  As- 
sociations, the  summer  camp,  girls'  con- 
ferences, the  Sunday-school  or  the  home, 
the  girl  must  be  impressed  with  the  fact 


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THOU    SHALT 

that  religion  and  life  go  hand  in  hand 
and  must  be  shown  the  way  to  give  that 
impression  opportunity  to  express  itself, 
until  repeated  expression  shall  have 
marked  out  the  trend  of  character. 

If  the  girl  herself  is  reading  this  chap- 
ter she  will  realize  that  while  in  a  girl's 
religion  there  must  of  necessity  be  the 
simple  definite  "  thou  shalt  not,"  the 
most  important  part  of  that  religion  is 
Thou  Shalt.  The  girl  herself  should  be 
so  busy  doing  the  things  that  ought  to 
be  done  that  there  is  no  time  for  the  un- 
desirable and  forbidden  things.  It  is 
much  to  the  girl's  credit  that  she  loves 
a  religion  that  does  things.  The  world 
needs,  every  church,  every  community, 
every  school  and  every  home  needs,  girls 
who  have  found  their  religion  and  put 
it  into  practise.  Find  yours,  then  put  it 
to  work,  helping,  helping  everywhere. 


MATTER  OF  CULTIVATION 


GREAT  many  people  are  willing 
to  sow  seed.  There  is  an  inspiration  in 
the  picture  which  the  word  "  Sower "  j($ 
brings  to  the  mind.  I  can  never  forget 
those  days  when  the  boys  and  girls  just 
entering  their  teens  took  their  spades 
and  hoes,  left  the  schoolroom  with  its 
algebra  and  technical  grammar  behind 
and  went  out  into  the  glorious  spring  sun- 
shine to  plant  their  school  gardens.  On 
the  various  packages  of  seed  were  pic- 
tured the  promised  flowers  or  vegetables 
and  with  joy  they  looked  forward  to  the 
day  when  they  should  be  able  to  proudly 
exhibit  the  results  of  their  planting. 

When  the  planting  was  done  most  of 
the  children  believed  that  the  hardest 
part  of  the  task  was  over.  Year  after 
year  successive  classes  failed  to  realize 
the  fact  of  Time.  As  the  weeks  passed 
and  the  slow  development  that  is  nature's 
way  to  perfection  went  on,  one  would 
hear  a  boy  say,  "  Next  year  I'm  going  to 
162 


A    MATTER    OF    CULTIVATION          163 

plant  radishes;  they  grow  faster,"  and 
another,  u  You  will  never  get  me  to  plant 
squashes  again;  they're  too  slow." 

These  young  gardeners  found  very  dif- 
ficult, and  some  found  quite  impossible, 
(the  task  of  waiting,  meanwhile  working 
with  the  soil  and  protecting  the  growing 
plants,  that  the  flower  and  fruit  might 
be  as  fine  as  possible.  Despite  encour- 
agement from  other  children  and  from 
instructors,  some  of  the  boys  and  girls 
lost  their  enthusiasm  entirely  and  seldom 
looked  at  their  gardens. 

Those  boys  and  girls,  planting  their 
seeds  of  flower  and  fruit  on  the  sunny 
hillside  and  in  the  shaded  nooks  where 
the  school  gardens  lay,  were  not  at  all 
unlike  the  men  and  women  who  today 
plant  the  good  seed  in  the  gardens  of 
hearts  that  come  to  them  in  the  glorious 
springtime  of  life  ready  for  the  sowing. 
Like  the  boys  and  girls  these  older  gard- 
eners are  pleased  with  the  picture  of  the 
result  of  their  seed  sowing.  With  en- 
thusiasm they  enter  upon  the  task  of 
planting,  with  eagerness  they  watch  for 
the  first  appearance  of  results.  And  then 
Time  enters  in.  There  is  evidence  of 
weeds;  slugs  and  worms  appear.  Then 
comes  the  clear  call  for  the  two  great 


164        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

virtues  of  the  sower  who  will  win 
a  harvest  —  Labor  and  Patience.  He 
must  cultivate  the  soil,  else  only  the 
meager  harvest  can  be  his.  The  art  of 
cultivation  is  the  one  so  many  would-be 
harvesters  fail  to  learn. 

To  realize  what  the  art  of  cultivation 
can  accomplish  one  needs  to  read  care- 
fully the  increase  in  the  record  of  the 
producing  power  of  certain  wheat  fields 
in  our  country  during  the  past  four  years. 
Courage  comes  with  the  study  of  the 
reports  of  modern  miracles  accomplished 
through  the  advice  and  instruction  of  the 
agricultural  schools  and  colleges  which 
have  escaped  from  the  thraldom  of  the 
abstract.  Every  one  should  look  once 
into  the  faces  of  boys  and  girls  of  the 
rural  schools  who  having  been  instructed 
in  the  art  of  cultivation  have  practised 
it  and  increased  the  value  and  quantity  of 
the  output  on  their  fathers'  farms,  ten- 
fold. It  fills  one  with  hope  to  look  into 
the  bright  eager  face  of  a  fourteen-year- 
old  prize  winner,  holding  side  by  side  in 
his  hand  the  stalks  of  corn,  one  small 
and  meager,  the  other  rich  and  full, 
made  so  by  the  art  of  cultivation  which 
he  has  so  patiently  practised. 

What  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  has 


A    MATTER    OF    CULTIVATION          165 

accomplished  in  the  agricultural  world  it 
can  accomplish  in  the  teaching  of  religion. 
If  young  America  is  irreligious  today  it 
is  because  we  have  sown  the  seed  and 
left  it  to  itself.  In  the  soil  of  young 
hearts  are  the  elements  which  make  a 
sane,  full  output  of  religious  life  possi- 
ble —  but  cultivation  is  necessary  and,  if 
we  are  to  raise  the  type  of  our  girlhood, 
imperative.  We  shall  be  compelled  to 
resist  the  temptation  to  give  up  because 
the  seed  does  not  grow  faster. 

Those  entrusted  with  the  cultivation 
of  this  human  soil  into  which  the  seed 
has  been  dropped  must  know  what  that 
seed  needs  as  it  develops  —  urging  for- 
ward here,  that  through  self-expression  it 
may  grow  strong,  restraining  there,  that 
it  may  not  spread  itself  out  and'  through 
over-expression  become  weak.  Only  lov- 
ing personal  knowledge  of  each  individ- 
ual life  will  make  possible  this  guidance 
and  restraint.  They  must  know  the  en- 
vironment in  the  midst  of  which  the  good 
seed  is  striving  to  climb  to  fruition,  else 
they  cannot  know  just  what  to  drop  into 
the  soil  to  stimulate  the  seed  in  its  fight 
for  strength,  nor  how  to  protect  it  from 
growths  that  threaten  to  choke  it. 

Those   entrusted  with  the   cultivation 


l66        THE    GIRL  AND    HER   RELIGION 


of  this  soil,  if  they  are  to  be  successful, 
must  learn  to  use  the  mighty  stimulus 
to  growth  that  comes  from  simple  friend- 
ship. Seed  which  can  come  to  fruition 
under  no  other  conditions  springs  into 
vigorous  life  under  the  power  of  warm 
friendship.  Many  a  seed  which  might 
have  developed  and  borne  rich  fruit  has 
shriveled  and  dried  in  the  chill  of 
unfriendliness  and  misunderstanding. 
These  cultivators  of  the  heart  soil  must 
learn  very  quickly  the  value  of  sunshine. 
Young  life  needs  the  rain  and  has  it,  but 
young  life  loves  the  sunshine,  it  blossoms 
in  the  presence  of  hope  and  expectation, 
it  droops  in  the  atmosphere  of  distrust. 

If  one  obeys  the  law  in  the  sowing  of 
the  seed  and  follows  the  direction  in  its 
nurturing,  the  Lord  of  all  harvests  will 
himself  give  the  increase. 


be 


sown   in 


the 


"  God's  Word  should 

heart  like  seed; 
Then  men's  hands  must  tend  it,  their  lives 

defend  it, 
Till  it  bursts  into  flower  as  a  deathless 

deed." 

Somewhere  in  the  religious  training  of 
a  girl  there  must  be  a  large  place  for  the 
feeding  of  the  soul;  for  unless  food  which 


A   MATTER   OF    CULTIVATION 


I67 


is  able  to  sustain  life  and  expand  it  is 
supplied  the  girl  can  never  become  a 
power  in  herself.  Hers  will  not  be  an 
invigorating  religion ;  there  will  not  be  in 
her  that  vitality  which  will  make  it  pos- 
sible for  her  to  banish  fear  and  fret,  to 
rise  above  discouragement,  to  endure  suf- 
fering, to  triumph  over  sorrow,  to  for- 
get self.  But  if  she  can  gain  this  ener- 
gizing power  she  will  not  join,  in  woman- 
hood, the  ranks  of  those  spending  their 
days  in  search  of  inspiration;  she  will 
have  it  in  her  own  soul.  If  she  lacks 
this  vital  power  she  will  become  one  of 
the  multitude  of  Christians  who  are  de- 
pendent upon  circumstances  for  their 
happiness,  upon  the  words  of  others  for 
their  encouragement,  upon  the  pleas  and 
persuasion  of  others  to  move  them  to 
service.  From  this  sort  of  woman,  who 
is  kindly  and  pleasant  when  things  go 
smoothly,  who  courageously  attacks  a 
problem  as  long  as  another  stands  by  to 
brace  up  and  urge  on,  who  gives  time, 
thought  or  money  when  some  strong  ap- 
peal is  made  and  then  loses  interest  and 
forgets,  until  another  "  prod  "  is  given, 
from  this  sort  of  expression  of  religious 
life  all  who  are  interested  in  girls  would 
save  them  and  so  are  seeking  the  means 


1 68        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

of  nourishing  their  souls  that  power  may 
be  generated  from  within. 

It  is  not  possible  to  get  inspiration 
from  a  source  with  which  one  has  no  con- 
nection and  the  whole  task  of  those  at- 
tempting to  give  to  the  girl  a  workable 
religion,  is  the  task  of  making  connections 
with  the  Source  of  power. 

Some  weeks  ago  I  observed  the  work 
of  an  instructor  attempting  to  make  the 
connection  through  the  study  of  thei 
Bible.  She  knew  that  telling  a  girl  to 
read  her  Bible  is  not  helping  or  training 
her  to  do  it.  These  girls  had  purchased 
ten  and  twenty  cent  Testaments  which 
could  be  cut,  and  small  loose-leaf  note 
books,  on  the  covers  of  which  were  pasted 
one  of  the  pictures  of  Christ.  The  girls 
had  spent  two  weeks  clipping  from  the 
Testaments  and  pasting  in  their  note 
books  "  the  things  Jesus  said  about  him- 
self and  the  words  God  spoke  concerning 
Him."  Two  weeks  more  were  spent  clip- 
ping the  "  things  others  said  about  Him  " 
—  Peter,  Paul,  John,  the  Pharisees.  The 
next  work  was  to  clip  what  Jesus  said 
about  forgiveness,  about  one's  duty  to 
neighbors,  treatment  of  one's  enemies,  the 
way  to  be  happy.  Later  they  were  to  use 
both  Old  and  New  Testaments,  cutting 


4 


A   MATTER   OF    CULTIVATION         169 

out  the  verses  which  they  thought  would 
be  of  comfort  to  any  one  in  sorrow,  to  one 
who  had  greatly  sinned,  and  verses  which 
they  considered  good  advice  to  young 
people.  That  instructor  was  making  a 
sane,  practical  attempt  to  feed  the  souls 
of  those  girls  by  helping  them  search  out 
for  themselves  what  the  Bible  has  to  say 
on  topics  of  real  interest. 

I  saw  a  note  book  recently  prepared 
by  a  fifteen-year-old  girl  which  I  believe 
most  valuable  because  of  the  things  about 
which  it  has  lead  her  to  think.  She  had 
taken  as  the  subject  of  her  book,  "  The 
Good  Shepherd."  On  the  cover  was  a 
picture  with  that  title ;  in  the  inside  a  fine 
collection  of  pictures  representing  Jesus 
as  the  Good  Shepherd,  clippings  regard- 
ing oriental  shepherd  life,  "  The  Shep- 
herd Psalm,"  the  Parable  of  the  Lost 
Sheep  and  the  words  of  hymns  like  "  The 
Ninety  and  Nine  "  and  poems  like  "  That 
Li'l  Black  Sheep." 

One  cannot  soon  forget  that  book 
with  its  decorated  margins,  its  neat 
mounting  of  cards  and  clippings  and  its 
beautiful  pictures.  The  effect  of  the 
book  upon  the  girl  who  made  it,  the 
teachers  said  was  very  apparent.  An- 
other book  was  entitled  "  Come  Unto 


I7O        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

Me,"  and  the  pictures,  verses  and  hymns 
were  most  impressive.  When  each  girl 
has  exchanged  books  with  each  mem- 
ber of  the  class,  they  are  to  be  sent  to  a 
rescue  home  for  girls. 

The  Bible  messages  to  mankind 
brought  by  such  simple  methods  into  di- 
rect contact  with  a  girl  in  her  early  teens 
is  one  means  of  nourishing  her  soul.  If 
it  is  true  that  the  best  in  poetry,  art,  litera- 
ture and  oratory,  as  well  as  the  great- 
est uplift  to  character,  finds  its  source  in 
that  Book  the  girl  should  come  into  real 
touch  with  it  that  it  may  feed  her  ex- 
panding soul.  It  is  this  sort  of  first-hand, 
individual  study  while  she  is  still  a  girl 
which  will  help  her  later  to  turn  to  the 
Book  for  encouragement,  comfort  and 
strength,  and  lead  her  to  great  thoughts 
and  the  attempting  of  great  things  be- 
cause her  own  soul  is  inspired. 

The  majority  of  teachers,  superin- 
tendents and  leaders  interested  in  re- 
ligious instruction  today  were  trained  in 
Christian  homes  and  taught  as  little  chil- 
dren to  pray.  Attendance  at  church  serv- 
ices of  various  kinds  gave  to  them  al- 
most unconsciously  a  phraseology  of 
prayer  and  impressed  upon  them  the 
place  of  prayer  in  the  Christian  life.  So 


A    MATTER    OF    CULTIVATION 


I/I 


familiar  is  the  fact  of  prayer  that  they 
forget  that  the  majority  of  pupils  in  the 
average  Sunday-school  of  today  are  not 
familiar  with  the  words  of  prayer  at 
family  worship,  are  at  best  irregular  in 
church  attendance  and  that  many  are  as- 
sociated with  no  society  in  the  church 
where  there  is  any  training  in  prayer. 

To  such  young  people  prayer  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  life.  They  say  the  Lord's 
Prayer  at  school  perhaps,  formally  and 
hurriedly  in  the  morning,  they  hear  the 
prayer  from  the  superintendent's  desk 
on  Sunday,  or  perchance  remember  the 
evening,  "  Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep," 
which  is  said  in  many  homes  not  Chris- 
tian, by  the  little  child.  But  the  prayer; 
which  though  only  an  echo  of  adult 
prayers,  and  only  half  understood,  calms 
many  a  fear  in  a  childish  heart,  helps  to 
victory  over  sin  many  a  struggling  ten- 
year-old  reared  in  a  Christian  home, 
is  utterly  foreign  to  the  child  who  has 
none  of  these  influences  and  who  meets 
in  the  average  Sunday-school  not  cultiva- 
tion, but  the  abstract  taken  for  granted 
type  of  instruction. 

I  have  in  my  possession  a  most  inter- 
esting set  of  papers  written  by  girls  in 
their  early  twenties  regarding  their 


Tsf 


/A 


THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

memories  of  their  own  training  in  prayer 
and  the  result  of  it  in  their  lives.  I 
quote  first  from  the  papers  of  girls 
brought  up  in  Christian  homes. 

"  I  can  remember  now  the  very  word- 
ing of  some  of  my  father's  prayers  and 
those  words  found  their  way  into  my  own 
—  some  of  them  are  still  there.  Often 
when  a  child,  I  prayed  impulsively,  using 
unconventional  terms  and  saying  *  you  ' 
instead  of  '  thou.'  Before  I  was  twelve 
mother  often  reminded  me  of  my  prayers 
when  she  said  good  night.  As  I  grew 
older  nothing  was  said  to  me  about  it.  I 
was  hot-tempered  and  continually  4  get- 
ting mad '  at  other  girls  and  teachers  and 
almost  every  one.  No  one  will  ever 
know  the  remorse  I  suffered  after  one  of 
those  outbursts.  At  night  I  would  pour 
out  my  soul  in  a  plea  for  forgiveness. 
I  was  sure  God  forgave  me  and  started 
next  day  with  determination  to  conquer. 
I  often  prayed  about  examinations  which 
were  very  hard  for  me.  Once  or  twice 
I  prayed  that  mother  would  see  that  I 
needed  a  different  kind  of  dress  from 
the  one  she  planned.  I  am  sure  that  I 
felt  God  was  a  sympathetic  friend  and 
prayer  to  me  was  natural." 

Here  was  a  girl  who  because  of  the 


*  i  ' 

b 


& 


MATTER    OF    CULTIVATION 


w 


i 

inljj 
HP 


cultivation  in  the  home  turned  simply  and 
naturally  to  God  to  supply  her  need. 
She  is  today  a  pure,  healthy,  natural 
young  woman  who  has  seemingly  tri- 
umphed over  her  propensity  to  "  get 
mad."  Another  girl  says: 

"  I  have  prayed  ever  since  I  remember. 
We  always  had  family  prayers  at  home 
and  in  church  our  pastor  always  prayed 
for  us  children.  I  used  to  pray  when 
I  was  afraid,  which  I  often  was  at  night 
when  the  wind  blew,  and  I  felt  comforted. 
My  little  sister  was  not  strong  and  for 
years  I  prayed  every  night  that  God 
would  let  us  keep  her.  Sometimes  when 
I  had  been  scolded  in  school  for  whisper- 
ing, in  which  I  was  a  great  offender,  I 
prayed  in  shame  and  remorse  for  forgive- 
ness. As  I  grew  older  I  still  prayed 
when  afraid  and  repentant  and  often  on 
a  beautiful  day,  or  in  the  canoe  at  sunset 
when  I  could  not  say  all  I  felt.  When  I 
was  about  eighteen  I  began  to  pray  for 
the  missionaries  and  people  who  were 
poor  and  sick.  I  do  not  remember  any 
definite  instruction  about  prayer.  It 
seemed  natural  to  me.  I  often  felt  doubts 
when  the  answer  didn't  come  but  had  a 
very  definite  feeling  that  the  trouble  must 
be  with  me." 


ft 

I  T 


174        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

This  girl  by  environment  and  uncon- 
scious training  has  also  found  speaking 
with  God  a  natural  thing.  There  are  so 
many  papers  which  express  through  dif- 
ferent personalities  the  same  general 
facts  which  cannot  fail  to  impress  one 
who  reads,  with  the  power  of  the  culti- 
vation of  prayer. 

But  in  the  papers  and  from  the  inter- 
views of  girls  in  the  early  twenties  whose 
only  definite  relation  with  the  church  is 
the  Sunday-school  class,  who  come  from 
non-Christian  homes,  whose  parents  al- 
most never  enter  a  church  a  different  note 
sounds. 

One  says: 

"  I  am  trying  to  be  a  Christian.  I 
have  not  joined  the  church.  I  cannot 
say  that  I  pray  very  regularly  but  I  have 
tried  to.  It  does  not  seem  to  help  me 
much.  The  minister  prayed  for  me  the 
day  my  brother  died  and  it  helped. 
Sometimes  I  read  in  a  book  of  prayers." 

And  another  writes : 

"  I  do  not  believe  I  ever  was  taught  to 
say  my  prayers  when  a  child.  I  do  not 
remember  ever  praying  except  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  I  am  interested  in  our  class,  the 
teacher  makes  the  lessons  interesting.  I 
like  to  hear  them  discuss  things.  I  al- 


A    MATTER    OF    CULTIVATION 


175 


ways  bow  my  head  during  prayer  any- 
where. Sometimes  I  have  thought  I 
would  pray  for  myself  but  I  never 
have." 

One  of  the  most  interesting  papers  is 
written  by  a  young  woman  engaged  in 
rescue  work  for  girls,  or  has  talked 
personally  with  a  great  many  girls  about 
prayer.  She  says: 

"  There  was  another  girl  with  whom 
I  talked  one  afternoon  whose  face  I  can 
see  clearly  now.  She  was  suffering  from 
great  remorse  because  of  her  sin,  for  up 
to  the  time  of  her  misfortune  she  had 
been  '  a  good  girl.'  One  of  the  workers 
suggested  that  she  pray  for  strength  and 
forgiveness.  'Pray,'  she  said  bitterly. 
'  They  told  me  that  when  I  was  a  little 
girl  and  went  to  Sunday-school.  Pray. 
How  can  I  talk  to  God?  What  would 
he  do  for  me?  I  tried  last  night  when 
I  couldn't  sleep  but  don't  know  what  to 
say/'" 

There  was  no  natural  turning  to  a 
strong  sympathetic  Friend  and  Father  on 
the  part  of  these  girls,  or  the  twenty  or 
more  whose  testimony  I  have  been  look- 
ing over.  Those  who  were  trying?  to 
be  Christians  made  it  a  matter  of  duty 
try  to  pray  but  it  was  irregular  and 


1 


A 


a 

i 


176        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

forced;  there  was  no  natural  spontaneity 
about  it.  It  wasn't  real  to  them,  it 
played  no  vital  part  in  life.  In  looking 
over  the  papers  one  is  convinced  of  the 
tremendous  asset  the  girl  has  who  from 
childhood  has  been  trained  to  turn  to 
the  Source  of  Strength  when  in  fear  or 
trouble  or  need  and  when  filled  with  the 
joy  of  living.  A  girl's  life  must  be 
raised  to  a  higher  plane  by  daily  contact 
with  the  Highest.  If  she  sincerely  speaks 
but  for  a  moment  to  God,  realizing  his 
love,  mercy,  justice  and  righteousness, 
it  will  not  be  as  easy  for  her  to  be  jeal- 
ous, unkind,  untrue  or  a  gossip.  One 
covets  for  all  girls  this  natural,  spon- 
taneous turning  to  God  which  has  seemed 
to  come  to  so  many  through  the  Chris- 
tian home  and  its  unconscious  influence 
and  instruction.  Nothing  can  take  the 
place  of  the  earnest  daily  prayer  of  a 
manly  father,  and  the  instruction  of  a 
sweet,  Christian  mother.  But  the  task 
which  so  many  homes  lays  down  the  com- 
munity must  take  up.  The  public  school 
cannot  cultivate  the  spirit  of  prayer,  and 
if  the  home  does  not,  the  church  remains 
the  only  possible  agent  through  which 
it  may  be  done.  The  Sunday-school 
teacher  is  the  church's  most  potent  instru- 


IF  '  VI 

ff 


MATTER   OF    CULTIVATION 


177 


ment,  therefore  a  large  share  of  the  task 
is  hers. 

The  teachers  in  the  Beginners'  depart- 
ments realize  the  need  of  the  cultivation 
of  prayer  and  pray  simply  and  often  dur- 
ing the  session,  baby  lips  repeating  the 
words.  Through  cards  and  memory 
verses  prayers  go  into  homes  where  none 
are  ever  made.  In  Primary  departments 
the  instruction  is  continued  and  children 
are  led  to  express  themselves  in  simple 
words  of  worship.  In  the  Junior  depart- 
ments there  is  the  superintendent's  prayer 
—  the  appeal  it  makes  depending  upon 
the  leader's  sympathy,  and  knowledge  of 
childhood.  Often  both  are  lacking. 
These  Junior  girls  know  the  street,  the 
moving  picture  show,  the  unsupervised 
playground,  the  temptations  of  school 
life;  they  are  beginning  to  show  the  moral 
effect  of  poverty  on  the  one  hand  and 
social  ambitions  and  false  standards  on 
the  other.  How  many  prayers  for  girls 
from  ten  to  twelve  does  one  hear? 
How  many  can  he  find  though  he  search 
ever  so  diligently. 

When  we  come  to  the  girl  in  her 
teens  we  find  often  in  large  numbers  of 
classes  that  the  only  instruction  in  prayer 
is  the  indirect  teaching  from  the  prayer 


V      ' 

i 


^  A 


178        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

at  the  desk.  How  many  girls  listen  rev- 
erently to  it? 

They  come  from  stores  and  shops, 
from  high  schools,  offices,  homes  of  plenty 
and  homes  of  want.  They  know  temp- 
tation, they  meet  it  in  more  dangerous 
forms  than  ever  before.  How  does  the 
prayer  affect  life  as  they  know  it?  Very 
little  I  am  bound  to  believe  unless  the 
great  experience  has  come  to  them  and 
they  have  said  in  simple  girlish  fashion, 
"  O  Christ,  I  choose  thee  King  of  my 
life  —  I  follow  thee  wherever  the  way 
shall  lead,"  unless  that  transferring  of 
will  from  vague  and  indefinite  desire  to 
a  definite  purpose  has  come,  the  prayer 
which  is  a  part  of  the  average  opening 
service  will  have  little  influence.  Even 
if  the  great  decision  has  been  made,  the 
prayer  of  one  far  away  at  the  desk,  often 
out  of  touch  with  young  life,  does  not 
bring  the  uplift. 

What  a  teacher  may  do  the  following 
testimony  of  a  young  girl  may  help  us 
to  see: 

"  I  never  had  any  special  instruction 
in  prayer  at  home.  I  think  I  must  have 
said  my  prayers  when  a  very  little  child. 
My  parents  are  just  fine  but  they  do  not 
go  to  church.  They  almost  always  spend 


A    MATTER    OF    CULTIVATION 


Sundays  with  grandmother  on  the  farm. 
I  do  not  remember  any  instruction  about 
prayer,  though  of  course  it  was  men- 
tioned and  I  knew  good  people  prayed, 
until  I  was  seventeen  when  the  finest 
teacher  I  ever  had  talked  to  us  about  it 
for  four  Sundays.  Then  I  saw  how  much 
the  people  who  had  helped  the  world  had 
prayed  and  how  much  it  did  for  them. 
She  made  Christ  seem  so  beautiful  and 
sympathetic  that  though  I  can't  explain 
it  I  wanted  to  pray  myself.  That  after- 
noon out  in  the  hammock  I  did.  I  shall 
never  forget  how  wonderful  the  world 
seemed.  ...  In  a  few  weeks  three  of  us 
joined  the  church  and  we  prayed  for  the 
other  girls.  That  year  eight  of  us 
joined." 

The  testimony  speaks  for  itself.  She 
taught  them  what  prayer  had  done  for 
others;  she  made  them  want  to  pray.  I 
do  not  know  that  teacher  but  I  feel  sure 
she  knew  by  experience  what  she  taught. 

I  know  another  teacher  who  is  very 
successful  in  cultivating  the  spiritual  life 
of  every  class  of  girls  as  it  comes  to  her. 
I  find  that  each  new  class  has  been  asked 
to  join  with  her  at  night  in  using  wisely 
selected  prayers  written  by  Stevenson, 
Rauschenbusch,  Phillips  Brooks,  and 


1 


others  taken  from  religious  journals  and 
from  calendars.  Each  prayer  is  used 
daily  for  two  weeks.  After  about  six 
months  the  teacher  asks  that  a  committee 
be  appointed  to  write  a  prayer  for  the 
class,  this  committee  being  changed  every 
two  weeks. 

Some  of  the  prayers  were  very  helpful 
and  all  had  a  crude,  simple  sincerity 
that  was  fine.  I  saw  a  letter  written  to 
this  teacher  by  a  seventeen-year-old  girl 
away  from  home  and  out  on  a  strike. 
It  was  a  pathetic  letter  but  one  sentence 
cheered  the  teacher's  heart  — "  The 
prayer  that  Midge  and  Kate  wrote  keeps 
coming  to  my  mind  and  it  helps  me  to 
keep  a  level  head  when  we  all  git  kinder 
wild." 

When  girls  see  that  prayer  is  not  be- 
seeching an  unwilling  God  for  things  the 
desire  for  which  may  be  born  of  pure 
selfishness,  but  is  the  way  by  which  help 
to  keep  steady  and  strong,  power  to  love 
one's  fellows  and  to  live  courageously  and 
well  comes  to  many,  it  will  make  a  dif- 
ference in  what  they  think  about  prayer 
and  the  way  they  pray.  But  most  girls 
do  not  know  these  things  intuitively. 
They  must  be  helped  to  know  them. 
The  spirit  within  them  must  be  culti- 


m 


m 


vated.  Prayer  and  seeking  the  Bible  for 
courage  and  help  are  largely  matters  of 
cultivation.  The  great  Teacher  prayed 
Himself  in  such  a  wonderful  way  that 
the  disciples  listening  cried — "  Lord, 
teach  us  how  to  pray."  And  he  answered 
their  request,  giving  them  the  words  to 
say  until  they  should  find  words  for  them- 
selves. He  made  them  want  to  pray. 

If  the  girl  herself  chances  to  read  this 
chapter  let  her  be  assured  that  there  is 
no  lesson  in  all  the  world  which  she  can 
learn  which  can  give  to  her  anything 
like  the  courage,  strength,  comfort  and 
help  to  go  right  on  in  the  face  of  hard 
things,  that  can  come  to  her  through 
learning  how  to  truly  pray,  not  empty 
words,  not  words  for  others  to  hear,  but 
words  that  say  all  she  feels  of  disap- 
pointment and  longing,  of  hope  and  glad- 
ness. The  Great  God  hears  all  one  can 
say  and  knows  what  she  cannot  say. 
Only  God  can  do  that.  Even  the  best 
friends  tire  of  our  struggles  and  failures. 
God  never  does  and  when  I  speak  to 
Him  I  may  know  He  cares.  Though 
I  am  one  speck  of  humanity  in  a  great 
mass  of  men  and  women,  though  the 
girl  who  is  reading  this  is  just  one  or- 
dinary girl,  one  among  millions  the  world 


A 

m 


l82        THE    GIRL  AND    HER   RELIGION 

around,    she    may   speak   to    God,    her 
Creator  without    fear,   may  touch   His 
greatness  and  her  heart  be  warmed  by 
\\J/  His  answering  touch. 

"  Speak  to  Him  then,  for  He  heareth, 

and  spirit  with  spirit  may  meet. 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing, 

And  nearer  than  hands  and  feet." 


PLEA  AND  A  PROMISE 


i 


HE  Plea  is  for  a  purer,  more  in- 
vigorating atmosphere  for  our  girls  to 
breathe  —  the  Promise,  that  when  it  is 
given  to  them  they  will  respond,  their 
religious,  as  well  as  physical  and  mental 
life  will  be  normal  and  the  vitality  in  it 
will  express  itself  in  action. 

Inspiration  is  a  part  of  a  girl's  re- 
ligion and  inspiration  means  "  inhaling 
—  taking  into  the  life  that  which  creates 
high  and  lofty  emotions." 

Memory  takes  me  back  to  school  days 
when  with  windows  wide  open,  shoulders 
squared  and  heads  erect,  the  teacher's 
command  bade  us  inhale  and  we  filled 
our  lungs  to  the  full  with  fresh,  life- 
giving  air.  Then  came  the  command  to 
exhale,  and  we  emptied  our  lungs,  that 
there  might  be  room  for  more  of  the 
clear  invigorating  air.  In  life's  larger 
school  our  girls  of  today  are  inhaling 
what?  Is  it  the  fresh,  untainted,  life- 
giving  air? 

183 


iv/ 


m 

1 


184        THE   GIRL  AND    HER   RELIGION 

The  other  day  on  the  street  I  overheard 
a  girl  uttering  words  that  made  me  turn 
in  dismay  to  look  at  her.  I  saw,  not 
what  I  expected  to  see,  a  coarse,  ill-clad, 
ignorant  girl,  but  a  pretty,  fashionably 
dressed  girl  with  high  school  books  un- 
der her  arm.  Where  had  she  breathed 
in  the  sentiments  regarding  honor  which 
in  slangy  phrases  she  breathed  out  with 
no  hesitation  or  shame?  There  was 
nothing  high  or  lofty  in  the  emotion  en- 
kindled  by  what  she  breathed  into  her 
soul  from  her  environment,  and  what 
she  had  breathed  out  into  her  companion's 
ears  could  not  fail  to  weaken  and  in- 
jure. 

I  found  myself  wondering  what  her 
environment  could  be  and  later  when  I 
described  her,  a  girl  companion  told  me 
her  name.  I  remembered  her  then,  one 
of  the  girls  who  had  grown  up  quickly, 
the  daughter  of  a  skilled  mechanic  who 
made  good  wages  and  owned  a  comfort- 
able home.  She  was  an  only  child  and 
her  mother  was  socially  ambitious  for 
her.  The  mother  had  done  nothing  to 
interest  her  daughter  in  the  church,  only 
now  and  then  did  she  attend  Sunday- 
school;  friends  were  entertained  Sunday 
evening,  so  she  had  no  connection  with 


A    PLEA    AND   A    PROMISE  185 

the  young  peoples'  societies  of  the  church. 
She  is  a  type  of  a  vast  number  of  girls 
whose  religious  sense  lies  dormant 

Knowing  now  her  environment,  I 
asked  myself,  "  Where  can  she  '  breathe 
in  that  which  will  stir  her  soul  to  high 
and  lofty  emotion,'  and  enable  her  to 
help  and  bless  her  world?"  At  home? 
Can  she  there  breathe  in  that  which  will 
enkindle  noble  ambition  to  love  and  serve 

I  in  a  world  which  so  needs  love  and  serv- 
ice? 

Once  there  were  numberless  homes 
and,  thank  God,  there  are  still  many 
where  a  girl  can  breathe  in  deep  draughts 
of  the  fresh,  sweet,  wholesome  atmos- 
phere in  which  the  family  lives.  But 
knowing  something  of  that  mother,  I 
knew  she  discussed  with  her  daughter, 
dress  and  parties,  her  future  at  college, 
her  music,  her  marks,  and  laid  wisely  and 
well  her  plans  for  the  forming  of  friend- 
ships which  she  considered  u  an  advan- 
tage." In  her  presence  she  criticized 
friends  and  neighbors  and  related  bits 
of  gossip.  Occasionally  she  scolded  her 
for  faults  that  happened  at  the  moment 
to  annoy.  Her  father  talked  boastfully 
of  his  successes  and  ambitions,  criticized 
the  men  for  whom  he  did  business,  found 


l86       THE   GIRL  AND    HER  RELIGION 

fault  with  those  whom  he  employed,  oc- 
casionally talked  of  politics  in  a  vain  at- 
tempt to  interest  his  wife  and  daughter. 
There  were  few  books  in  the  home.  The 
newspapers  and  one  or  more  popular 
magazines  represented  the  only  reading 
of  the  family.  The  daughter  played  a 
little,  sang  a  little,  sewed  a  very  little 
and  studied  as  much  as  she  must  to 
insure  the  certificate  for  entrance  to  col- 
lege. But  she  attended  matinees,  danc- 
ing parties  in  large  numbers,  and  be- 
longed to  a  whist  club.  A  whist  club, 
poor  girl,  at  sixteen !  Her  parents  were 
blind  and  deaf  to  the  fact  that  in 
their  daughter's  life  there  was  nothing, 
save  now  and  then  a  desperate  attempt 
on  the  part  of  an  earnest  high  school 
teacher,  or  a  word  from  a  teacher  who 
occasionally  found  her  in  the  Sunday- 
school  class,  which  might  inspire  her  soul 
with  high  ideals,  pure,  noble  thoughts 
expressed  in  action  which  makes  life 
sweeter.  Of  nature's  beauties,  of  her 
countless  miracles,  of. the  dramatic  acts 
of  current  history,  of  the  lives  and  needs 
of  other  girls  she  knew  almost  nothing. 
In  her  pitiful  little  world  she  lived,  her 
best  self  dying  for  want  of  pure  air  with 
the  oxygen  of  power  in  it. 


A    PLEA   AND  A    PROMISE 


i87 


Can  she  find  in  the  social  life  and 
amusements  of  the  day  the  inspiration 
needed  to  fill  her  soul  with  life  that  it 
may  develop  as  her  normal  healthy  body 
develops?  No,  the  girls  of  our  country 
do  not  find  our  social  life  a  help  to  the 
higher  expression  of  self.  Only  here  and 
there  do  wise  parents  make  social  life 
simple,  free  from  show  and  sham,  from 
false  standards  and  appeals  to  the  senses. 
But  few  know  how  to  center  the  so- 
cial life  in  the  home,  in  the  out-of- 
doors,  in  clean  sports,  instead  of  letting 
it  center  about  exotic  conditions,  unrea- 
sonable hours,  and  deadly  refreshments. 
Only  now  and  then  does  the  present  so- 
cial life  demand  any  exercise  of  mental 
power. 

It  is  wonderfully  encouraging  to  find, 
here  and  there,  groups  of  girls  of  sixteen 
and  their  boy  friends  having  their  simple 
good  times  in  each  other's  homes,  enjoy- 
ing the  picnic  and  the  skating  party;  or 
the  girls  by  themselves  enjoying  camp 
life,  the  tramp  in  the  woods,  the  gymna- 
sium class ;  or  with  their  parents  or  chap- 
erones  enjoying  the  moving  pictures  of 
high  standard,  without  vaudeville.  These 
girls  are  such  a  contrast  to  the  usual 
groups  of  sophisticated,  bored,  blase 


l88        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

girls  who  at  eighteen  have  tired  of  the 
ordinary  means  of  recreation  and  amuse- 
ment. Our  social  life  suffers  from  too 
rapid  growth.  It  does  not  offer  the  tonic 
for  healthy  social  nature.  It  needs  prun- 
ing. Some  of  it  needs  to  be  torn  up  by 
the  roots. 

And  what  of  the  schools?  Can  she 
find  there  the  atmosphere  that  will  stir 
her  soul  to  noble,  unselfish  joyous  living? 
Yes,  in  some  schools.  Many  are  engaged 
in  merely  continuing  the  "  system,"  fol- 
lowing a  curriculum  strangely  deficient 
in  those  things  which  touch  life  directly, 
to  inspire  it  and  kindle  it  with  ambition. 

Recently,  four  names,  the  names  of 
women,  were  presented  to  classes  of  girls 
in  the  last  year  of  the  grammar  grades 
and  the  four  years  of  the  high  school. 
The  girls  were  asked,  "  Did  you  ever 
hear  of  Frances  Willard?  What  do  you 
know  about  her?"  Then  followed  the 
names  of  Mary  Lyon,  Clara  Barton, 
Alice  Freeman  Palmer.  The  show  of 
hands  and  the  written  replies  were  piti- 
ful. Some  had  a  vague  idea  that  they 
had  heard  the  name  somewhere,  a  few 
gave  one  or  two  facts.  Clara  Barton 
seemed  the  one  most  familiar  but  knowl- 
edge concerning  her  was  very  limited. 


PLEA   AND  A   PROMISE  l8O 

rasjf 

Then  Jane  Addams'  name  was  tried,  the 
same  meager  replies  resulting.  Finally 
the  name  of  the  wife  of  a  noted  and  no- 
torious insane  criminal  was  given  and 
scarcely  a  hand  was  down  in  answer  to 
the  first  question,  and  pencils  flew  over 
the  paper  in  answer  to  the  second. 
What  does  it  mean?  It  does  not  con- 
demn the  school,  nor  does  it  hold  the 
school  responsible  but  it  does  suggest  that 
there  might  be  some  substitute  characters 
for  the  mythical  ones  of  ancient  history, 
A^S  or  that  possibly  the  lives  of  great  and 
noble  women  might  be  studied  with 
greater  profit  by  the  girls  of  today  than 
certain  abstract  problems  in  physics.  In 
many  of  the  classes  where  the  questions  U^ 
were  asked  that  fresh,  clear,  vitalizing 
atmosphere  charged  with  reality,  seemed 
lacking. 

When  we  can  calmly  look  at  our 
schools,  recognize  the  tremendous  diffi- 
culties under  which  they  work,  realize 
their  limitations,  and  with  profound  be- 
lief in  what  they  have  done,  gratitude  for 
what  they  are  doing  and  confidence  in 
what  they  are  going  to  do,  get  at  our 
task  of  setting  teachers  free  and  vitaliz- 
ing courses  of  study,  we  shall  be  able  to 
generate  in  them  all  the  atmosphere  in 


IQO        THE   GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

which  the  girl  will  find  inspiration  for 
noble  living. 

Where  can  the  girl  turn  for  the  life 
giving  atmosphere?  To  the  church? 
Yes,  if  the  church  were  awake  to  the  facts 
and  equipped  to  meet  her  needs.  But 
what  a  small  part  of  our  country's  girl- 
hood comes  into  direct  contact  with  the 
church,  and  how  few  churches  have  ade- 
quate leadership  provided  for  those 
whom  it  does  touch.  The  whole  problem 
of  adolescence  is  a  problem  of  leadership. 
A  wise  leader  has  almost  unlimited 
power  in  charging  the  atmosphere  with 
the  spirit  of  uplift.  The  church  must 
furnish  leadership.  It  must  guide  or  lose 
its  youth.  It  must  advise  with  practical, 
possible  advice. 

Perhaps  the  day  will  come  when  groups 
of  churches  will  unite  in  forming  social 
centers  and  the  business  men  of  those 
churches  shall  seriously  consider  the  prob- 
lem of  where  girls  shall  meet  their  young 
men  friends  and  how  they  shall  spend 
their  evenings  together.  Perhaps  some 
day  the  men  of  the  church  will  select  in 
their  community  a  good,  clean  moving 
picture  house,  and  there  are  some,  where 
they  can  advise  their  young  people  to  go, 


A   PLEA   AND  A   PROMISE 


191 


helping  them  thus  to  escape  the  snare 
of  those  who  cater  to  evil. 

Those  most  deeply  interested  in  a  girl's 
religion,  have  come  to  see  its  relation  to 
every  other  phase  of  her  life,  and  to 
know  that  one  may  not  snatch  amuse- 
ments from  the  lives  of  young  people, 
giving  nothing  in  return. 

Just  what  is  wisest  to  give  in  return 
is  our  great  problem.  The  church  must 
meet  it  and  it  needs  help. 

The  time  is  ripe  and  more  than  ripe 
for  the  direct  appeal  to  the  home.  It 
should  be  made  through  every  avenue 
and  in  every  language.  It  should  be 
made  through  every  newspaper  and 
printed  in  every  tongue  —  "  Responsi- 
bility belongs  to  the  home.5'  All  sorts 
of  homes  must  help  in  making  the  atmos- 
phere in  which  a  young  girl  must  live, 
safe,  free  from  poisons  that  mean  suf- 
fering and  in  the  long  run  death  to  the 
best  things. 

I  happened  one  day  in  a  smoke  laden 
city  upon  a  group  of  women  in  one  of  the 
residential  districts  who  were  meeting  to- 
gether to  see  if  all  the  families  for  a 
certain  number  of  blocks  east  and  west 
would  promise  to  use  only  hard  coal  in 


IQ2        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

their  homes.  One  of  the  women,  the 
mother  of  three  young  children,  pictured 
vividly  the  difference  it  would  make 
in  the  atmosphere  their  children  must 
breathe  and  closed  her  appeal  by  saying, 
"  But  women,  it  means  that  we  must  all 
burn  it.  The  help  one  or  two  of  us  can 
give  amounts  to  almost  nothing.  Into 
each  of  our  cellars  the  hard  coal  must  go 
and  each  of  us  must  insist  upon  using 
nothing  else.  Then  we  shall  have  clean, 
pure  air  for  our  babies  to  breathe 
throughout  all  this  section." 

She  had  stated  the  answer  to  the  whole 
problem  of  bringing  inspiration  to  our 
girls.  It  will  need  every  home  and  every 
church  to  keep  the  atmosphere  clean  and 
invigorating. 

It  may  be  that  the  girl  herself  is  read- 
ing and  thinking  over  this  Plea  and 
Promise.  If  she  is  she  will  realize  how 
earnestly  we  covet  for  her  all  the  best 
things  and  how  we  long  for  wisdom  to 
help  her  get  them.  Perhaps  she  will 
think  that  she  can  do  a  great  deal  toward 
getting  them  for  herself,  and  she  can. 
Let  me  recall  to  her  mind  one  of  the  girls 
whom  we  find  in  almost  every  gymnasium 
class,  whose  pale  face  and  stooping 
shoulders  attract  at  once  the  instructor's 


attention.  Let  me  remind  her  of  the 
special  exercises  given  that  girl  for  chest 
development,  the  advice  about  food  and 
the  command,  "  Live  with  your  windows 
open.  Let  the  air  into  your  lungs." 
Again  and  again  you  will  remember  the 
instructor  gave  the  command  to  the  class, 
"  Breathe.  Use  your  lungs !  Half  of 
you  use  only  two-thirds  of  your  lung  ca- 
pacity !  "  And  then  by  way  of  emphasis 
she  contrasted  her  own  chest  expansion 
and  yours,  adding,  "  If  you  want  health, 
take  deep  breaths." 

The  Plea  which  I  make  to  the  girl  her- 
self is  that  she  use,  to  the  full  capacity, 
her  power  to  inhale  those  things  that 
shall  give  inspiration  for  pure,  helpful 
living.  Every  girl  has  that  power. 
Some  use  only  two-thirds  of  it,  some  one 
third,  some  have  forgotten  its  existence. 
If  a  girl  wants  to  really  live  she  must 
"  breathe  deep,"  with  her  soul's  win- 
dows open  wide  to  the  atmosphere  that 
will  give  her  strength.  If  she  is  obliged 
to  live  with  those  who  do  not  think  of 
these  things,  whose  own  spirits  are 
starved,  she  can  seek  friends  who  will 
help,  she  can  go  to  the  places  where  her 
mind  and  soul  are  stirred  as  well  as  her 
senses,  she  can  find  in  good  books  great 


194        THE   GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

uplift  and  courage.  She  will,  if  she  truly 
wants  inspiration  and  help  to  live  nobly, 
attend  regularly  some  church  where  the 
service  makes  her  long  to  be  her  best. 
She  will,  if  possible,  join  some  class  where 
she  can  study  the  life  and  teachings  of 
Jesus  Christ,  who  now  even  as  when  He 
was  here,  lifts  those  who  listen  to  Him 
out  of  failure  and  discouragement  into 
hope,  in  whose  presence  every  girl  may 
breathe  in  the  atmosphere  filled  with  life 
giving  power. 

If  a  girl  responds  to  this  Plea  to  open 
her  soul  to  the  great  Giver  of  life,  I  can 
Promise  that  she  will  find  true  happiness 
and  joy. 


XVII 
A  PERSON  NOT  A  FACT 

HfVERY  thoughtful  person  craves  facts. 
They  are  cold,  hard,  sometimes  discon- 
certing but  they  carry  weight.  "  It  is  a 
fact,  it  has  been  proven,"  hushes  many  a 
query  and  silences  many  an  argument. 
And  yet  it  is  not  in  the  array  of  facts 
which  can  be  given  at  any  moment  that 
young  people  find  their  incentives  and  in- 
spirations. They  may  have  all  the  facts 
at  their  tongue's  end  but  lack  the  fire 
which  shall  transfuse  those  facts  into 
power  to  act  in  accordance  with  their 
teachings.  Julius  Caesar  is  a  fact  A 
girl  may  have  no  doubt  of  his  existence, 
she  may  not  question  the  great  events  of 
his  life,  but  he  does  not  stir  her  to  action. 
The  fact  of  George  Washington  does  not 
awaken  the  patriotism  of  a  girl  and  in 
schools  where  merely  the  facts  regard- 
ing his  life  are  given  his  influence  is  prac- 
tically negative.  But  whenever  the  facts 
have  been  breathed  upon  by  a  sympa- 
thetic spirit  and  the  fact  George  Wash- 
es 


196        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

ington  transformed  into  the  personality 
that  lives  in  the  girl's  presence  then  his 
influence  begins  to  count. 

It  is  not  the  facts  about  Abraham  Lin- 
coln that  engender  heroism.  The  facts 
may  be  presented  in  such  a  way  as  to  hold 
but  passing  interest.  I  have  heard  the 
life  and  times  of  Abraham  Lincoln  taught 
that  way.  But  I  have  seen  Abraham 
Lincoln  presented  to  a  class  of  foreign 
girls  by  one  to  whom  he  had  become  a 
friend  as  real  and  genuine  as  if  he  stood 
by  her  side.  As  I  listened  /  saw  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  I  felt  the  kindness  and 
patience  of  his  great  soul,  the  honest 
purpose  and  the  fine  courage  of  his  life. 
The  facts  were  there  in  that  lesson  but 
more  than  the  facts  were  there.  He  was 
there.  At  the  close  of  the  lesson  that 
teacher  looking  into  the  faces  of  the  girls 
who  represented  nearly  every  land  across 
the  sea  said  to  them,  "  What  do  you  think 
of  him?"  One  girl  responded  eagerly 
"  I  think  he  was  grand! "  and  a  dark- 
haired  intense  girl,  her  black  eyes  glow- 
ing, rose  and  said  with  an  earnestness  and 
fervor  I  can  never  forget,  "  I  love  him!  " 
"  You  shall  hear  more  tomorrow,"  said 
the  teacher,  and  they  looked  as  if  it  were 
hard  to  wait. 


A   PERSON    NOT   A   FACT 


197 


A  careful  observation  of  the  ways  of 
presenting  great  men  of  history  and  great 
characters  in  literature  to  young  people 
will  convince  one  beyond  doubt  that  the 
girl  may  store  the  facts  in  the  memory 
K  for  a  time,  but  if  the  living  personality 
is  presented  it  will  remain  to  mold 
and  guide  and  influence  the  life.  The 
teacher's  greatest  power  is  never  in  what 
she  teaches  but  in  what  is  revealed  to  the 
individual  through  her  teaching.  The 
mind  hungers  for  facts,  searches  for  facts 
and  wearies  of  facts.  It  follows  person- 
ality. 

When  Richard  Watson  Gilder  tried  to 
voice  the  plea  of  the  young  doubter, 
puzzled,  perplexed  and  suffering  from 
the  great  array  of  apparently  conflicting 
facts  and  most  of  all  from  his  own  failure 
to  win  out  over  the  temptations  that 
swept  over  him  he  said: 


my    soul    is    hurt    and 
the    scholars    wear   me 


"Thou    Christ, 

bruised! 

With    words 

out; 

My  brain  overwearied  and  confused, 
Thee,  myself  and  all,  I  doubt. 


198        THE    GIRL  AND    HER   RELIGION 

"  And  must  I  back  to  darkness  go 
Because  I  cannot  say  a  creed? 

I  know  not  what  I  think!     I  know 
Only  that  Thou  art  what  I  need." 

Aft 

The  fact  is  not  enough.  John  Kend- 
rick  Bangs  says  it  forcibly  — 

"  A  mere  acceptance  of  the  fact  of  love 

of  God  above, 
Of  all  the  vast  omnipotence  of  Him  our 

Maker  and  Defence 
Is  not  believing/' 

Slowly  we  are  getting  back  to  the  rec- 
ognition of  the  proper  place  of  fact,  of  its 
power  as  the  background  and  basis  against 
which  and  upon  which  Personality  must 
stand.  Our  eyes  are  opening  to  see  that 
if  the  girl  is  to  gain  a  religion  which  shall 
mean  life,  she  must  gain  it  through  a 
person  who  reveals  a  Person. 

Here  is  Mary  D ,  a  girl  of  fifteen, 

a  worker  in  a  mill  employing  a  very  cheap 
grade  of  help.  Her  face  was  hard,  there 
was  no  light  of  anticipation  in  her  eyes 
—  she  had  nothing  to  anticipate.  She 
toiled  through  the  long  hours,  for  there 
was  no  limit  to  her  day  in  the  state  where 
she  lives.  Her  home  was  not  a  home 
but  a  place  where  she  could  stay  nights 


trt 


THE    FUTURE    PROMISES    NOTHING    AND    SHE    HAS 
LOST    HOPE 


A    PERSON    NOT    A    FACT 


199 


—  when  her  father  was  not  so  quarrel- 
some through  cheap  drink  that  he  drove 
her  out.  One  day  a  woman  at  a  noon 
service  in  the  factory  shocked  at  a  pro- 
fane remark  of  Mary's  said  reprovingly, 
"  Don't  you  believe  there  is  a  God?" 
"  Sure  I  do,"  said  Mary,  "  but  I  don't 
see's  it  makes  no  difference  to  me." 
Further  questions  followed  and  Mary  de- 
clared her  belief,  adding,  "  I  don't  bother 
much  about  them  things."  Mary  had 
some  facts  and  declared  some  sort  of  be- 
lief in  them,  but  they  made  no  difference. 

The  next  summer,  Mary,  overcome  by 
the  work  of  the  year  and  an  attack  of 
the  grippe,  was  sent  by  a  woman  in  one 
of  the  churches,  to  a  girl's  camp.  She 
lived  in  decent  fashion,  she  saw  a  lake, 
great  mountains,  sunsets  and  stars!  She 
found  flowers  and  sat  quite  still  watching 
birds  that  seemed  so  marvelous  to  her. 

Slowly  she  grew  strong.  One  night 
she  went  to  the  sloping  bank  by  the  lake 
under  the  great  pine  trees  to  attend  the 
twilight  service.  The  sky  was  crimson 
with  the  sunset  and  there  was  a  wonder- 
ful path  of  light  across  the  lake.  The 
songs  and  the  beauty  moved  Mary's  soul. 
She  wanted  something  with  all  her  heart 
that  she  had  never  wanted  before.  She 


200        THE    GIRL  AND    HER   RELIGION 


did  not  know  what  it  (the  great  change) 
was  at  first,  but  before  she  slept  she 
turned  to  another  girl  in  the  tent  and  ex- 
pressed it  as  best  she  could  —  "I  want  to 
be  good"  she  said. 

Through  the  weeks  that  followed  she 
saw  in  the  faces,  in  the  kindness  and 
courtesy,  in  the  good  times  she  had  never 
known,  in  the  women  who  planned  them 
and  in  the  songs  and  talks  at  sunset  a 
Person.  She  heard  His  name  often. 
He  represented  all  of  the  happiness  and 
comfort  she  had  ever  known  and  one  day 
with  all  the  eagerness  of  an  awakened 
soul  she  said,  "  I  love  Him."  They  told 
her  what  changes  must  come  in  the  life  of 
a  girl  who  said  those  words  and  meant 
them,  for  they  had  seen  the  faults  in  her 
and  they  were  many.  She  was  undaunted 
by  all  they  said  she  must  do,  and  an- 
swered in  her  uncouth  fashion,  "  I'd  die 
doin*  them  fur  Him." 

They  wanted  her  to  leave  the  mill  but 
she  said  no,  one  of  the  girls  was  leaving 
and  she  was  to  have  her  place  with  lighter 
work.  She  wanted  to  go  back  and  tell 
the  girls  some  things,  she  said. 

Not  three  years  have  passed  but  Mary 

D is  a  new  girl.     She  is  attractive; 

one   can   scarcely  believe   unless  he  has 


I,- 


A    PERSON    NOT    A    FACT 


2O I 


seen  it.  She  is  clean;  she  is  happy. 
Her  friends  secured  a  position  for  her 
father  out-of-doors  where  he  had  loved 
to  work  as  a  boy.  Mary  took  him  to  the 
Mission  and  there  he  promised  to  begin 
the  fight  against  his  enemy.  The  men 
in  the  Mission  helped.  Regular  pay 
made  a  decent  home  possible.  They 
have  begun  to  live. 

Overcome  by  the  effects  of  ignorance 
and  sin,  failures  as  citizens,  as  individuals, 
as  human  souls,  they  met  a  Person  and 
life  was  transformed.  If  it  were  pos- 
sible to  replace  in  every  factory  for 

Mary  D who  assented  to  the  facts 

but  passed  them  by  as  having  nothing  to 

do  with  her,  Mary  D who  met  a 

Person  and  loved  Him  what  a  world  of 
new  moral  forces  we  could  create! 

He  was  revealed  to  Mary  D not 

in  the  abstract  which  could  not  impress 
her  but  in  the  concrete  which  she  under- 
stood. O  if  only  we  could  grasp  the  sig- 
nificance of  that ! 

Ruth  M was  a  college  junior  with 

ancestry  and  wealth,  brilliant,  sarcastic, 
selfish.  She  knew  all  the  facts  and  ac- 
cepted them.  She  was  a  member  of  a 
church  with  which  she  had  united  at  four- 
teen as  had  her  mother  and  grandmother 


2O2        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


before  her.  She  did  not  think  much 
about  the  facts,  they  had  not  greatly  im- 
pressed her.  If  questioned,  she  promptly 
stated  that  she  believed  this  and  that, 
she  thought  such  and  such  things  were 
probable  though  no  one  could  prove 
them,  and  dismissed  the  subject  to  talk 
of  her  own  plans  and  interests. 

Then  her  great  sorrow  came.  In  a 
moment  she  lost  everything  dear  to  her. 
They  called  it  an  accident.  She  held  God 
accountable  and  in  bitterness  and  anger 
turned  her  back  upon  all  the  facts.  The 
months  passed  and  her  health  breaking 
she  was  obliged  to  leave  college.  At  the 
beautiful  health  resort  to  which  she  went 
she  met  a  girl  she  had  known  well  when 
a  little  child.  They  renewed  the  friend- 
ship. Then  the  giiTs  sorrow  came.  It 
was  not  death,  it  was  far  worse,  scandal 
and  disgrace  in  her  family,  which  had 
been  unstained  before.  Out  of  a  clear 
sky  it  came. 

In  amazement  Ruth  watched  her 
friend.  She  saw  her  suffer  but  she  saw 
no  conquering  bitterness,  heard  no  words 
of  wild  rebellion.  She  looked  into  a 
sweet  calm  face  and  saw  a  girl  less  than 
twenty,  with  life's  conditions  changed  in 
a  moment,  adjust  herself  to  the  new  con- 


W 

fl 


A    PERSON    NOT   A    FACT 


203 


ditions  and  go  on.  Seeking  a  solution 
she  questioned  her  friend  and  met  a  Per- 
son. Day  after  day  as  she  saw  Him 
revealed  in  that  heroic  life,  as  she  be- 
held the  girl  overcoming  in  His  strength 
natural  resentment  against  the  injustice 
and  unkindness  of  those  who  would  make 
her  suffer  for  the  sins  of  her  parents,  the 
facts  were  swallowed  up  in  the  Person 
and  she  loved  Him. 

Together,  the  past  summer,  in  a  rest 
camp  for  mothers  and  babies  they  worked 
out  the  commands  of  the  Person  who 
had  made  it  possible  for  them  to  take  up 
life  after  bitter  loss  and  find  it  sweet. 

If  one  could  summon  to  a  central  place 
the  girls  who  have  met  the  Person  what 
an  inspiration  they  would  be !  Of  every 
sort  and  condition,  of  every  color  and 
nation,  speaking  languages  new  and  old 
and  dialects  that  have  never  been  written, 
all  uniting  in  the  testimony  that  He  has 
made  life  great  for  them. 

The  facts  are  in  chaotic  state.  Parts 
of  truth  and  segments  of  universal  fact 
are  waiting  for  man  to  unite  them.  Only 
the  perfect  whole  can  speak  with  cer- 
tainty and  we  must  wait  for  that.  The 
creeds  are  countless.  They  do  not  mat- 
ter much.  The  Person  said  little  about 


fl 


204       THE   GIRL  AND   HER  RELIGION 

them.  They  are  just  our  poor  attempts 
to  put  in  words  —  God  and  His  will.  It 
is 

"  Not  the  Christ  of  our  subtile  creeds 
But  the  Lord  of  our  hearts,  of  our 
homes, 

Of  our  hopes,  our  prayers,  our  needs; 

The  brother  of  want  and  blame, 
The  lover  of  woman  and  men, 

With  a  love  that  puts  to  shame 
All  passions  of  mortal  ken." 

The  only  way  to  meet  a  fact  is  to  face 
it,  follow  it  and  see  where  it  will  lead. 
It  is  prejudice  that  blinds  one's  eyes  to 
facts.  It  is  only  man's  limited  vision, 
that  makes  a  part  seem  as  a  whole,  that 
accepts  as  fact  the  thing  he  would  like 
to  be  a  fact,  that  one  need  fear.  Facts 
that  are  facts  need  never  cause  one  to 
doubt.  For  fact  is  truth  and  truth  leads 
to  God.  The  business  of  every  church 
and  every  teacher  of  religion  is  to  discover 
the  facts,  and  present  the  Person. 

If  the  girl  herself  is  reading  these 
words  let  her  be  assured  that  more  than 
any  array  of  facts  that  she  can  gather, 
more  than  any  proofs  man  can  summon, 
she  needs  the  Person.  The  handicapped 
girl  finds  in  Him  strength  to  triumph 


A   PERSON    NOT   A   FACT 


205 


0 


in  spite  of  it,  the  privileged  girl  finds  in 
Him  the  inspiration  for  her  work  of  ex- 
tending her  privileges,  the  girl  who  is 
easily  led  to  find  in  Him  one  who  never 
leads  astray,  the  girl  who  is  misunder- 
stood can  find  in  Him  one  who  under- 
stands perfectly,  the  indifferent  girl  who 
"  means  to  "  will  find  in  Him  a  friend  to 
encourage,  steady  and  compel,  the  girl 
who  worships  the  twin  idols  can  find  in 
Him  a  rescuer  who  shall  set  her  free,  the 
girl  of  high  ideals  will  see  in  Him  the 
highest  Ideal,  the  source  of  all  the  others, 
and  the  average  girl  of  the  every  day  with 
her  good  points  and  bad,  her  successes 
and  failures,  will  find  in  Him  a  Friend 
who  will  make  life  seem  wonderfully 
worth  while. 

Don't  let  the  multitude  of  things  in 
which  you  are  interested,  the  maze  of 
contradiction,  the  abstract  facts,  the 
trials  and  hardships  of  life,  the  pleasures 
you  love,  or  any  other  thing  make  you 
pass  Him  by.  If  you  gain  everything 
else  in  life  and  miss  Him  you  will  fail 
to  know  what  life  means.  If  you  find 
Him  you  will  find  Love  and  that  is  the 
best  thing  life  can  give. 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  CLIMAX 

OO  many  miss  it.  It  is  more  than 
duty  but  the  path  that  leads  to  the  glory 
of  it  often  begins  with  the  plain,  insist- 
ent, ought  of  duty.  It  is  more  than 
obedience,  though  without  obedience 
none  ever  find  it.  How  many  girls  there 
are  who  are  disappointed,  dissatisfied, 
suffering  perhaps  in  body  and  soul  be- 
cause they  never  learned  to  obey!  It  is 
a  great  thing  to  be  able  to  hear  "  you 
ought "  and  then  at  whatever  cost  to 
obey  it.  But  the  climax  is  not  found  in 
these  things  great  as  they  are. 

Faithful  servants  of  a  religion  whose 
law  is  duty  one  finds  among  girls  and 
honors  them.  Good  and  faithful  serv- 
ants of  a  religion  whose  law  is  obedience 
there  are  among  girls.  But  neither  of 
these  have  found  the  glory  of  the  climax. 
The  climax  is  Love.  The  supreme  com- 
mand of  the  Founder  of  true  religion  is 
—  Thou  shalt  Love. 

The  religion  of  love  is  a  girl's  re- 
206 


m 


THE    GLORY    OF    THE    CLIMAX        2O7 

ligion  and  she  can  never  be  satisfied  with 
any  other.  If  those  who  have  tried  to 
teach  her  religion  have  failed  to  show  her 
this,  then  they  have  succeeded  in  giving 
her  only  a  set  of  laws  to  be  obeyed  or 
a  list  of  things  she  should  not  do.  Love 
gives  to  Thou  Shalt  and  Thou  Shalt  Not 
power  without  which  they  can  accomplish 
little. 

Love  transforms  hard,  disagreeable, 
empty  service  and  makes  it  glorious. 
No  one  knows  this  better  than  a  girl. 
She  has  done  things  when  necessity  com- 
pelled her  to  do  them,  and  she  has  done 
them  when  love  compelled  her  to  do 
them.  She  knows  the  difference.  Jesus 
founded  His  Kingdom  on  the  knowledge 
He  had  of  Love.  He  knew  the  kingdom 
would  stand.  On  his  lonely  island  of 
banishment  dreaming  in  the  twilight,  with 
all  the  struggle  and  attainment  behind 
him  Napoleon  realized  it  as  he  said, 
"  Caesar,  Charlemagne,  I,  have  founded 
empires.  They  were  founded  on  force 
and  have  perished.  Jesus  Christ  has 
founded  a  kingdom  on  Love,  and  to  this 
day  there  are  millions  who  would  die 
for  Him." 

When  I  say  that  the  religion  of  girl- 
hood is  the  religion  of  Love  I  mean  real 


A   } 


$ 

•7A 


2O8        THE    GIRL  AND    HER   RELIGION 

love.  Warm,  sweet,  tender,  quick  to  un- 
derstand, quick  to  discern  need,  tireless 
in  service.  I  mean  the  love  that  does  not 
wait  to  be  asked  to  serve,  the  love  that 
gives  because  it  must  give.  When  a 
girl's  religion  is  filled  with  this  love  and 
rests  upon  it  the  girl  does  not  say, 
"  Well,  I  suppose  if  I  am  a  Christian  I 
can't  do  that."  The  thought  in  her 
heart  if  it  were  put  into  words  would  be, 
"  I  wonder  if  He  would  want  me  to  do 
that?"  Simple,  natural,  sincere  desire 
not  to  do  the  thing  displeasing  to  One 
who  loves  and  is  loved. 

One  day  I  was  looking  at  a  deep  well, 
sunk  away  down  in  the  rocks.  Machin- 
ery dragged  the  water  from  the  earth 
and  machinery  turned  it  into  service. 
Some  days  later  I  saw  a  mountain  spring. 
It  poured  and  poured  out  over  the  rocks, 
down  the  precipice  into  the  brook,  on 
into  the  river.  It  ran  as  if  it  were  glad 
to  run  and  would  never  stop!  Green 
things  grew  on  every  side  of  it,  mosses 
clung  to  the  rocks  it  touched,  rich  grass 
filled  the  meadow  through  which  it 
flowed,  birds  followed  it.  Life  and 
beauty  seemed  to  spring  from  every  place 
it  touched. 

When  I  remembered  the  well  of  water 


in 
m 


THE     GLORY     OF    THE     CLIMAX        2CK) 

deep  down  in  rock,  dragged  up  by  ma- 
chinery it  seemed  to  me  like  religion,  the 
religion  of  service  through  duty,  and  I 
knew  that  it  would  keep  right  on  serving 
as  long  as  the  machinery  worked  and 
would  do  its  part  dutifully. 

Then  I  looked  again  at  the  spring.  It 
seemed  to  me  like  religion,  the  religion 
of  love  that  blessed  because  it  is  its  nature 
to  bless  and  poured  itself  out  in  service 
because  it  must. 

It  is  the  religion  of  love  which  holds 
one  to  the  side  of  the  road  where  need 
is  great,  work  must  be  done,  perhaps 
sacrifice  made.  That  Samaritan  who 
stopped,  dismounted,  tenderly  cared  for 
an  injured  brother  of  hated  race,  lifted 
him  to  his  own  beast,  slowly  walked  be- 
side him  to  a  place  where  rest  and  shelter 
could  be  provided,  knew  the  love-inspired 
religion.  The  Priest  and  the  Levite  were 
followers  of  the  law,  the  letter  of  the 
law,  but  they  looked  upon  the  man  in  his 
need,  crossed  to  the  other  side  and  passed 
by. 

The  Jericho  road  is  still  with  us,  and 
the  needy  who  call  for  help  and  for 
justice  are  upon  it,  injured  in  body  or 
soul.  The  religion  of  the  letter  of  the 
law  looks,  crosses  to  the  other  side, 


2IO        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 


passes  by.  On  one  side  of  the  road  Need, 
on  the  other  side  Greed,  and  Love  always 
where  Need  is. 

The  religion  of  Love  follows  the  road 
the  Founder  took,  the  road  that  leads  to 
the  place  of  service.  That  road  may 
lead  to  China,  it  may  lead  to  the  islands 
of  the  sea.  It  took  Livingstone  to 
Africa,  Dan  Crawford  to  the  Bantus  for 
twenty-two  years  and  now  is  taking  him 
back  for  the  rest  of  his  days.  It  took 
Carey  to  India,  it  left  Grenfell  in  Lab- 
rador, it  led  last  year's  college  girls  to 
every  quarter  of  the  globe.  It  leads  this 
one  down  among  the  dirty,  helpless,  little 
children  trying  to  play  in  wretched 
scorching  city  streets,  it  leads  that  one 
to  the  lonely  countryside  where  girls 
starved  for  life  are  waiting.  And,  oh, 
so  often  it  leads  one  to  the  door  of  her 
own  church,  to  her  own  street,  to  her  own 
class-room,  to  the  girl  beside  her  in  the 
office.  Sometimes  it  leads  to  one's  own 
kitchen,  or  it  stops  beside  the  chair  where 
one's  own  mother  sits.  One  can  never  tell 
where  the  road  of  the  religion  of  love 
may  lead,  but  one  cannot  fail  to  see  that 
those  wrho  follow  it  have  shining  faces  and 
they  love  to  live. 

One  day  at  sunset  I  waited  at  the  little 


AT) 


THE    GLORY    OF    THE    CLIMAX        211 

wharf  to  walk  through  the  pines  with 
Elizabeth.  She  was  paddling  in  her 
canoe  over  the  lake  that  had  turned  to 
crimson  and  gold,  from  the  fresh  air 
camp  on  the  other  side  to  which  she  went 
every  afternoon  in  summer  to  play  games 
and  tell  stories.  "  I  had  a  great  day," 
she  called  in  her  clear,  cheering  voice  as 
she  neared  the  wharf,  and  added  as  she 
stepped  from  the  boat,  "  Little  Billy  loves 
me  and  Katie  Kane  whispered  softly  and 
blushed  when  she  said  it,  that  she  told 
me  a  lie  yesterday  and  was  never  going 
to  tell  a  lie  no  more  as  long  as  she  lived ! 
Poor  Katie,"  she  laughed. 

When  we  reached  the  knoll  where  the 
three  pines  were  we  stopped  and  looked 
back.  Words  could  never  describe  what 
we  saw.  Elizabeth  stood  silently  watch- 
ing it,  her  sweet  face,  her  dark  hair  and 
her  middy  blouse  tinged  with  the  glow 
of  it.  As  the  sun  slowly  slipped  into  the 
lake  she  waved  her  hand  playfully  at  it. 
"  Good  night,  old  man,"  she  said.  "  Give 
us  a  cooler  day  tomorrow.  Fifty  new 
children  come  to  camp."  After  a  mo- 
ment while  we  waited  for  darkness  to 
come  stealing  over  the  lake,  forgetful 
of  me,  she  said  with  her  whole  soul  in 
her  voice,  "  Oh,  I  love  it,  I  love  it  all  — 


V 


212        THE    GIRL   AND    HER   RELIGION 

the  world,  and  those  poor  blessed  chil- 
dren," then  very  softly  "  and  God." 

She  had  found  the  girls'  religion,  the 
religion  Jesus  Christ  said,  when  they 
asked  Him,  meant  two  things  — r  "  Thou 
shalt  love  the  Lord  Thy  God  —  and  Thy 
Neighbor." 

This  is  the  girl's  religion,  for  in  loving 
she  shall  find  Love  —  the  glory  of  the 
climax. 


THE   END 


UNIVEKSITY  OF  CALIFOENIA  LIBEAEY, 
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